Srdja Popovic is a founding member of Otpor! (“Resistance!”), the Serbian civic youth movement that played a pivotal role in the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian president accused of war crimes. He is also the leader of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), a non-profit organization based in Belgrade, Serbia, that works with nonviolent democratic movements from around the world, sharing the knowledge of nonviolent strategies and tactics historically used by Otpor!. Popovic was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. In 2014, he was listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

After Milosevic’s ousting in 2000, Srdja was elected to the Serbian National Assembly, where he served a term as a Democratic Party MP and an environmental affairs advisor to the prime minister. In 2003, he founded CANVAS and has since acted as its executive director. He was chosen as one of Foreign Policy’s “Global Thinkers” in 2011. In 2012, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and was among the “50 people who will change the world,” according to the Wired Smart List. In 2014, he was listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos.