The speakers at the Visegrad Youth Forum 2017
Ferenc Kalmár, Deputy Head of the Defence Policy Unit, Defence Policy Department of the Ministry of Defence of Hungary
Ferenc Kalmár earned a European history and languages major in both English and French at the University of Maryland University College in Casteau, Belgium. He also holds an M.A in national security and defence policy from the Miklós Zrínyi National Defense University in Budapest, Hungary, as well as an M.A. in international security and defence studies from the Jean Moulin University in Lyon, France. Following his studies, he worked as a research fellow at the Policy Planning Unit of the Secretary General’s Private Office at the NATO HQ in Brussels, Belgium, as the project manager for the Middle East and Balkans at the International Centre for Democratic Transition in Budapest, Hungary, and as a desk officer at the Department for Security Policy and Non-proliferation of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Between 2011 and 2016, he served as the Political-Military Affairs Officer at the Hungarian Embassy in the United States. He’s been serving as the Deputy Head of the Defence Policy Unit at the Defence Policy Department of the Ministry of Defence of Hungary since November 2016.
Miroslav Mizera, Special Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Defence, Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic
Miroslav Mizera graduated from the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations of the Matej Bel University and also studied at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium. In 2012, he graduated from the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, as well as from the International Visitor Leadership Program in the United States. Additionally, he successfully completed expert courses at the NATO School Oberammergau, the Slovak National Defense Academy and the European Union’s European Security and Defense College. In the past, he worked as the Editor-in-Chief of the Euro-Atlantic Quarterly and served as Vice President of the International Youth Atlantic Treaty Association. Between 2010 and 2014, he served as Advisor to successive Deputy Ministers at the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic. Between 2014 and 2015, he held the post of Head of Secretariat for the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2016.In 2016, he served as Advisor to the Deputy Minister of Economy of the Slovak Republic.
Jakub Kufčák, Research Fellow, AMO Research Center and Member of the Supervisory Board of AMO
Jakub Kufčák holds an M.A. in German and Austrian Studies from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Charles University in Prague, while also studying at the Free University in Berlin as part of the Erasmus exchange program. In 2013, he finished a one-year program in security studies (the Robinson-Martin Security Scholars Program) at the Prague Security Studies Institute. He also completed an internship at the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. Furthermore, he is a contributing editor for the Czech “Portál odborných studentských textů”, an online academic journal for students. Since May 2017, he has been participating exclusively in educational and research projects and was named Member of the Supervisory Board of AMO in the same year.