Peter Baláž, in Esperanto known as Petro, is an Esperantist, publisher and editor. He lives in Slovakia and speaks, to various degrees, Slovak, Czech, German, Polish, Russian and English, as well as Esperanto. Peter is especially active in the international Esperanto movement and educational projects, and in 2005 he became the coordinator of E@I. He is also known as an organiser of international events (mainly, but not only, Esperanto meetings). He owns the Slovakia-based publishing firm Espero, founded in 2003, which publishes mainly Esperanto works. He has been a core organizer of the Polyglot Gathering since 2017. For more info see Wikipedia.

Dorota is from Poland and currently lives in Slovakia. Economist according to her diploma, Esperantist according to her heart. Master of tables and papers. Can’t sleep well if she is not organizing something. Since 2010, she has been organizing international events in various European cities and countries. She has experience in organizing events with up to 1300 participants. She has been a core organizer of the Polyglot Gathering since 2017.

Matthieu is from France but has been living in Austria for 5 years, after 7 years spent in Slovakia. He studied computer engineering. He speaks (to various degrees) French, Esperanto, English, Polish, German, Russian and Slovak; he also likes learning various languages he’ll probably never speak – currently Japanese and Korean. He also has a YouTube channel and a blog about languages. He has been a core organizer of the Polyglot Gathering since 2017.

Sonja was born in Moscow. Besides Russian, she speaks English and Esperanto. Living in Slovakia, she works on her Slovak. She loves dogs and sloths, reads on mental health, and dreams of a tattoo related to Van Gogh’s art.

Maciej (Maciek being the hypocoristic form of the name) is from Poland and he lives in Warsaw and Kraków (depending on the week). He studied Spanish philology and is passionate about Romance languages, speaking some of them (to various degrees). He also loves Esperanto and uses it almost every day and he firmly believes that it’s the perfect lingua franca. Aside from Romance languages, he loves the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture (not to mention the cuisine). When not teaching Spanish, Maciek enjoys long walks with his dog, reading and listening to Baroque music or podcasts.

Elisa Polese is an ICF-certified language coach, polyglot, and international speaker specializing in speaking a language from day one, multilingual learning, and overcoming learning blockages. She has studied over 25 languages and teaches 13 of them, combining language didactics with coaching and psychology to help learners achieve fast, confident results.

She has lived and taught in several countries across Europe and is the creator of high-impact programs that guide learners from zero to the beginning of B2 in just three months.

Ewa was born in 1998 in Wrocław where she grew up and now studies two courses: Italian philology and management. She’s a born workaholic, words such as boredom and resting do not exist in her dictionary and she reaches every goal she sets for herself. She loves travelling, reading books and couldn’t imagine life without studying, especially languages (she’s now studying Esperanto and Spanish). Her interests are history of World War II and music (she sings and used to learn to play the violin, cello and piano).

Marta Melnyk is a polyglot coming from Ukraine. Languages are her hobby. She likes learning, teaching and creating languages courses, while her main field of work is in IT. She speaks fluent Ukrainian, Polish, German and English, but has different levels of other languages. Her polyglot mission is to encourage others to learn Ukrainian.

Thomas is a publicly appointed and sworn translator for German, English, and French. Born in Germany, where he studied translation science, he’s now living in Prague, Czech Republic, where he discovered his love for Slavic languages. His current challenges include Czech, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.

Bartek was born in 1998 in a small town near Wrocław.

Right now he lives and works in Wrocław (he is now a CNC programmer). He may not speak in a lot of languages (only 2) but in his workfield he knows a lot of programming languages.

He is interested in studying more and more in his workfield but in a free time he likes hiking and going on a trips. He is very calm and you can speak with his about literally about anything (even if he has no idea what you’re talking about, he’ll try to learn something about it).

Leonardo is originally from Italy, but currently lives in southern Germany, where he is a freelance corporate trainer for Business English, Italian and French. He has also lived in England and France, and he speaks, in varying degrees of fluency, Italian, English, French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. He is currently trying to learn Ukrainian and Esperanto.

When not learning or teaching languages, Leo enjoys playing the guitar, cooking, travelling, playing chess, reading pretty much anything he can put his hands on, going on long walks and smiling all the time for no reason whatsoever.

Luis is a Colombian living in Canada. He works in several languages, is fluent in six, and is always curious to learn more. With an MBA from an American university, his day-to-day work lies in the financial and creative fields, yet he lives completely intoxicated by dense, rich literature. Luis is convinced that our love for languages actually stems from a powerful love for humanity and our longing to connect deeply with others.