Maya Viswa

Maya Viswa is an alumni from the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program at Columbia University in the City of New York. Born and raised in Singapore, she was deeply exposed to a world of multiculturalism and the potential of cross-cultural conversation and peaceful coexistence. Alongside this, she developed at an early age a strong passion for the creative arts, in particular dance and theatre, with over 12 years of professional industry training. This inspired her about the power of the arts to achieve social change and ignite meaningful conversations. Her various leadership experiences as well as work assignments in different fields such as the legal practice, public policy, consulting, media and volunteer work emboldened in her the penchant for interdisciplinary thinking and cross-pollination of ideas. She has had the opportunity of working with inspiring corporations such as Clifford Chance Asia Pacific, Channel News Asia and Strategic Moves Pte Ltd, in various interdisciplinary capacities. These skills were complimented by her degree in Politics, Philosophy and Law with a specialization in Human Rights in the United Kingdom. During her time at undergraduate, she also spearheaded the inaugural Warwick Law Summit which aimed to push the horizons of law, spark conversations across disciplines and facilitate solutioning of future issues. The conference brought prominent speakers from across the globe including the honourable Vice-President of the European Commission, Dubravka Suica and key individuals from the media, politics, artificial intelligence and other prominent spaces. She hopes to continue building initiatives of peacebuilding across cultural and professional boundaries. Currently, through her MSc at Columbia, her focus is to marry her passions of conflict resolution, the arts and cross-cultural conversation together. She hopes to target her future work towards innovative peacebuilding initiatives through change consulting and conflict resolution.