Ceng Sagnic is a researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies (MDC), editor of the monthly MDC publication Turkeyscope and Coordinator of the MDC Kurdish Studies Program. He is a member of the Islamic State (IS) and Iraq Forum; and the Forum on Kurdish Society, History and Politics at the MDC. His research areas include the current militant trends in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Yemen; and Kurdish nationalist movements across the Middle East. Sagnic also serves as a regional policy consultant for several major international corporations among them media agencies and risk consultancy firms. He is a graduate of the University of Kurdistan-Hewlêr (UKH) in Erbil and concluded his Master's degree in Middle Eastern politics and history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Sagnic is currently a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University, focusing on modern Iranian Kurdish nationalist movements in his dissertation. 

Hemen Hawrami is the youngest member of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Leadership Council and Senior Assistant to President Masoud Barzani.Born in 1976 in Halabja, the town that was attacked with chemical bombs by Saddam Hussein's regime in 1988, Mr. Hawrami graduated with a B.A degree in English literature in 1999 from the University of Salahaddin, Erbil. He did his master degree in International Relations from the University of Kurdistan Hewler in 2016 and is currently doing a PhD in International Relations and Political Science at Soran University. Between 1989 and 2000, he was an active member of the Kurdistan Students Union. Prior to his graduation from 1999, he worked in the KDP Media, writing extensively on political matters relating to the politics of Kurdistan, Middle East and international politics. He also occupied several positions engaged in public relations and other KDP organizational positions.From 2004, he served in the office of President Barzani (the Leader of KDP and President of the Kurdistan Region) in several capacities until December 2010 when he was elected to the leadership of KDP in its 13th Congress. From July 2011 to February 2017 he was the head of KDP Foreign Relations Office. In February 2017, he was promoted to the position of Senior Assistant to President Masoud Barzani for political and diplomatic affairs.Mr. Hawrami has authored eights books in Kurdish, including “Freedom and the Relationship between Opposition and Authority in a Democratic Experience”, “The Cadres Thought and the Political Marketing”, and “Impossible Politics in a Dynamic Equation.”  Known as an informative and sharp public figure and persuasive politician, he is frequently being hosted on local and international media and delivers seminars and talks on local and international stages