Mr. Omaid Sharifi is the Co-Founder and President of ArtLords and a patron of the arts. ArtLords is a leading urban art management organization in Afghanistan and a grassroots movement of artists and volunteers motivated by the desire to pave the way for social transformation and behavioral change through employing the soft power of art and culture as a non-intrusive approach. He is also an Atlantic Council Millennium Leadership Fellow and an Asia Society 21 Fellow. Mr. Sharifi is a winner of the Best Animation for Peace and Tolerance Award from the MiSK-UNDP Youth Forum (2017), an Anti-Corruption Excellence Award Winner from Ban Ki-Moon and Emir of Qatar (2016) and Afghanistan’s Social Media Award Winner for encouraging offline action (2015). Previously he served as a Program Manager for the British Council of Afghanistan’s Tawanmandi project for strengthening civil society in Afghanistan from 2012-2016 and as an aide to Dr. Ashraf Ghani at the Transition Coordination Commission from 2011-2012.