Jan Sokol

Jan Sokol is a philosopher, former dissident, politician, translator, anthropologist and university professor, signatory of Charta 77 and one of the founders of Občanské fórum.

From 1990 to 1992 he was a Member of Parliament, in 1998 Minister of Education and at the 2003 election he was coalition candidate for President of the Czech Republic. From 2000 to 2007 he served as the first dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague.

He is also former adviser to the Minister of Education, member of various societies and NGO’s, vice-chairman of the Czech Grant Agency, member of the Scientific Councils at the Faculty of Pedagogy and at the Center for Theoretical Studies, CU Prague, at the Faculty of Humanities, Pardubice, and at the Masaryk University, Brno. Member of the Czech branch of International PEN-Club. Former chairman of the Education Comitee of the Czech Unesco, former vice-chairman of the Board of IBE Geneva and so on…

Married, three children, nine grandchildren.