In her TEDxThessaloniki talk in 2015, UNHCR’s spokesperson Melissa Fleming shared the amazing story of a young Syrian refugee, Doaa. Back then, no one could have imagined the extent of the refugee crisis that would find Europe, and indeed the world, unprepared. In this year’s event, Melissa sent a video giving us an update on Doaa’s tragic, yet hopeful, story. The next chapter of her life finds Doaa in Sweden with a scholarship towards her education.
Critical to that was the help of Alexis Pantazis, one of last year’s speakers, that was moved by Doaa’s story and awarded her the scholarship through his company. Alexis took the stage and in a Q&A session with TEDxThessaloniki curator, Elena Papadopoulou, explained the difficulties his company faced in order to award the scholarship and encourage every individual to contribute where nations and institutions, like the EU, fail to do so – a small contribution that can have a very big impact.

Melissa Fleming is a leading communications professional, working to draw attention, drive empathy and generate support for the world’s 50 million refugees and displaced people. As Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), she leads media teams to bring news and stories of people on the run to the public consciousness.

She is a champion for public communication through social media, including on her own Twitter account. She also leads an innovative multi-media production team producing refugee stories of survival and resilience. She believes in the power of public speaking to move audiences. Her TED talk, “Let’s help refugees thrive, not just survive,” has been viewed over 700,000 times around the world and has been subtitled in 20 languages. She is also co-organizer of TEDxPlaceDesNations in Geneva. She writes a regular column for the Guardian and is a contributor to UNHCR’s blog.

Alexis is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Hellas Direct, a new insurance company founded in 2011 with the view of changing the way Greek car insurance companies service their clients. The company specialises in car insurance, selling policies directly via the web and over the phone. Prior to Hellas Direct, Alexis was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs where he led principal investing and new strategic initiatives for the firm in the European investment management field. A former strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, Alexis also worked for Miramax Films in New York and the Competition Directorate General of the European Commission in Brussels. Over the past few years, Alexis has privately invested in a number of different ventures, focusing on angel financing and the strategic use of technology in the financial services space. He has held advisory roles and participated at Board level across a number of different start-up companies.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx