Mindaugas Bilius is the President of the Lithuanian Paralympic Committee, a member of the Executive Board of the European Paralympic Committee, and a Paralympic champion.

M. Bilius was born in 1982 in Šiauliai, Lithuania. After finishing school, he enrolled in Šiauliai University, where he studied Physical Education and Sports Pedagogy.

In 2001, M. Bilius moved to the United States, where he spent 10 years. There, he was involved in a car accident, barely surviving and becoming disabled.

M. Bilius returned to Lithuania and turned to Paralympic sports. He became European and world champion, in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games, he won gold and silver medals.

In 2017, M. Bilius was elected President of the Lithuanian Paralympic Committee and ended his career as a professional athlete.

M. Bilius has completed master's studies in the field of political science, as well as sports management and tourism.

Violeta Birzniece works as a policy officer in the sport unit of the Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, European Commission. Her main responsibilities are gender equality in sport, Erasmus+ mobility action for sport staff and the European Week of Sport.

Before joining the sport unit in 2021, Violeta worked for 13 years in the field of youth policy and programmes in the European Commission.

She has a bachelor’s degree in international business and a master’s degree in European public administration.

I was fortunate enough to have been raised with the idea that everyone counts. That every individual should be offered all the opportunities to explore their life to the max. That everyone should be treated equally with this principle in mind and everyone, therefore, has the right to be totally included. In society in general this is, unfortunately, not always what we know happens. A variety of so called ‘weaker target-groups’ suffer a serious risk of dropping out or being excluded from society. This is a very sad development and a dark picture of future European society.

However, I believe -or even more, I am convinced- that para sport can lead the way towards a more inclusive society. Sport is in my opinion the most obvious place where inspiring humans, all with their own story, push their abilities beyond all boundaries.

Unlocking the full potential of our Paralympic Movement in Europe is my aim. Together we have accomplished so much and just look at how far we have come already! We can honour the road we have travelled by giving para athletes a grander stage, to enable all European citizens to see our achievements and to enjoy listening to our stories.

My own sport roots lie in snow skiing. After my sports career, I spent more than fifteen years in various sports related administrative roles, as the president of the Dutch Ski Federation, as the vice-president of the Board of the National Olympic Committee, as the president of the NPC of the Netherlands and as the president of the European Paralympic Committee. My close involvement in the preparation of the Paralympic Winter Games Vancouver 2010 is where I saw the power and impact the Paralympic Movement: that everyone counts, that every individual should be offered all the opportunities to explore their life to the max. Since that time, my passion has been to further the development of parasports and organise inspiring strong multis para port events such as the combined European Para Championships. In 2023 the championships were held in Rotterdam and now we are full on track to prepare for the 2027 version; more than ten para sports, about 2.000 para athletes.

I’m also very proud of being part of the team that helped to make para snowboarding a new Paralympic sport in Sochi 2014.

Besides the different administrative roles I have in the sports realm, I run a small consultancy office on strategic economic and spatial planning.