Martin Poliacik is a Slovak communication expert, critical thinking educator and public intellectual who grounds every lesson in lived experience. He began his career as a debate judge and international trainer, earned a master's degree in philosophy, served as director of the Slovak Debate Association for three years and later taught at a Montessori school in Bratislava. He spent a decade in the Slovak Parliament and four years in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and at the age of 29 he helped draft the Slovak government's official policy programme. Martin co-founded the Academy of Critical Thinking, whose courses have trained thousands of people across corporate, institutional and freelance settings. After the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, he worked as deputy director of GLOBSEC's Kyiv office for 14 months. Together with his wife, Hana, he has co-founded four small businesses, all of which he remains involved in. He is currently responsible for outreach at the Emile Foundation, a Hague-based organisation advocating for solutions to the displacement of Ukrainian children into Russian-controlled territories.