One Yound World Politician of the Year Award
Speakers
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Anna StrolenbergOne Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award WinnerAnna Strolenberg
One Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award Winner
Anna Strolenberg is one of the youngest Members of the European Parliament.
Her initial step into politics was as the campaign leader of Volt Netherlands, a new political party fighting for a stronger Europe. At the age of 24 she set up a successful national campaign that made her party get into the Dutch parliament.
She later worked as a press officer for the Dutch Council for Refugees. When the Dutch government fell in 2023, largely due to misinformed facts on migration, she tirelessly worked on debunking myths and putting forward positive stories about migration. The political climate became harsher, especially towards migrants, and facts in politics seemed to matter less. With a strong belief that politics should be based on facts and promote policies, she decided to run herself in the 2024 European Election. In the European Parliament she advocates for women's rights, fair migration policies and innovative agriculture.Anna has a specific focus on making the online world safe for women. With the rise of AI, the problem is only getting worse, as technologies like deepfakes are being used to harass and silence women. Anna held a TEDx talk on the need for safe platforms and launched the Digital Wave of Feminism.
In all her work, she puts humanity first. She travelled to the borders in Bulgaria and multiple times to a migration detention centre in Albania, to monitor on the ground whether human rights of asylum seekers are respected. She travelled to Albania to support citizens in their fight against corruption and for a better future for the youth. She will continue to travel and support people – not power - as long as needed.
Anna believes that the biggest challenges facing her generation cannot be solved by one country alone. She is passionate about empowering young leaders from all over the world to work across borders and build a better future. She is based in Brussels and Rotterdam. -
Ryosuke TakashimaOne Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award WinnerRyosuke Takashima
One Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award Winner
Born in 1997, TAKASHIMA Ryosuke is the youngest mayor in Japanese history, having been elected to lead Ashiya in April 2023 at the age of 26.
His policy priority is elevating the quality of public school education through "Just-Right Learning" (a student-driven, tailored approach) and promoting citizen-led community development through extensive dialogue across all ages. Hosting over 16 dialogue sessions annually, he has developed a model where citizens progressively take ownership of city planning, moving from Q&A with the mayor to citizen-led discussions where the mayor simply listens. He visits all public schools regularly and actively supports student-led initiatives, including junior high students rewriting their own school rules, believing that democracy must be learned early to be practiced for life.
His influence extends nationally: since 2025, he has served as a specialist member of the Central Council for Education (MEXT), contributing to the revision of national curriculum guidelines.Ryosuke earned an A.B. in Environmental Science and Engineering from Harvard College in 2022. While at Harvard, he led Ryu-fellow, an educational non-profit nurturing future global leaders for seven years, focusing on supporting students studying abroad and facilitating youth involvement in local community building.
He has been named a TIME100 Next honoree (2025) and selected as a TED Fellow (2026), recognized internationally as "Japan's youngest-ever mayor reshaping democracy." -
Takudzwa NgadzioreOne Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award WinnerTakudzwa Ngadziore
One Young World Politician of the Year 2026 Award Winner
Takudzwa is a young Member of Parliament and Former Vice-Chairperson of the Parliamentary Youth Caucus (PYC) in Zimbabwe, a pro-youth voice and policymaker. He has dedicated his life to lead as a Human Rights Defender (HRD) and Academic Freedom Fighter (AFF), serving as the 11th President of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) from 2020 to 2022, the largest student movement in the country. In the 2023 Zimbabwean election year, he spearheaded the Register, Elect, and Protect (REAP_zw) campaign, aiming to
increase youth participation in the electoral and political system. He has vast experience in democratic governance, human rights, and equitable development issues, having worked with the Pan African Foundation, TrustAfrica, co-created a constitutional awareness outfit, Section7, and awarded the Accountability Fellow for Accountability Lab`s New Narratives for Accountability in Zimbabwe (NNAZ) project (2022-2023) and the McCain Global Leaders Fellowship (2024). Takudzwa is an Oxford-Oak scholar at the Blavatnik School of Government, the University of Oxford.