We'll be pleased to host Dr. Hans Köchler^* (President of the International Progress Organization) at BISAV on Saturday, 26 August 2017, at 17:00. He is going to deliver a speech titled "The United Nations in the Age of Transition: New Balance of Power or Collapse of World Order". It will be a roundtable meeting and participants may have a chance to raise question and discuss their opinions. 

Note: Entire program will be conducted in English.

* Hans Köchler was born on October 18, 1948 in the town of Schwaz, Tyrol, Austria. He graduated at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) with a doctor degree  in philosophy (Dr. phil.) with highest honours (sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae). From 1982 until 2014 he was University Professor of Philosophy (with special emphasis on Political Philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology). He holds honorary doctor degrees from the Mindanao State University (Philippines) and from the Armenian State Pedagogical University, and an Honorary Professorship in Philosophy from Pamukkale University (Turkey). From 1990 until 2008 he served as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck. At his University, Professor Köchler also served as Chairman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Wissenschaft und Politik (Working Group for Sciences and Politics) from 1971 until 2014. In 1998 he was Visiting Professor at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). In 2004, he was appointed as Visiting Professorial Lecturer at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila. Following his election as Life Fellow in 2006, he was elected as Co-President of the International Academy for Philosophy in 2010.

Köchler is the Founder and President (since 1972) of the International Progress Organization (I.P.O.), an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in consultative status with the United Nations and with a membership in over 70 countries, representing all continents. He was the founder and Secretary-General (1973-1977) of Euregio Alpina, a transnational planning group for the Alpine region,predecessor of the concept of the "Euro Regions" in the framework of the European Union. During the 1970s and 1980s Köchler participated in the international phenomenological movement and organized several conferences and colloquia on the phenomenology of the life-world; he was the organizer of the Eighth International Phenomenological Conference in Salzburg (1980), and is the co-founder of the Austrian Society of Phenomenology. During the 1970s, he co-operated with Cardinal Karol Wojtyła of Krakow, later to become Pope John Paul II, within the framework of the International Society for Phenomenology. He published the first comment articles on the future Pope’s anthropological conception.