Mikołaj Wolanin – born in 2002, Ph.D. student in law (University of Warsaw), Master of Laws (University of Warsaw) and Canon Law (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw). Under the 4EU+ alliance's virtual mobility, he remotely attended Charles University in Prague's course during the 2022/2023 academic year. From July to September 2023, he visited the Faculty of Law at the University of Verona (Italy). In March 2024 he pursued a month-long internship at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg (Germany), to which only a few of students out of about 200 applicants are invited annually.

From 2019 to October 2026, president and founder of the Foundation for the Student Rights [Fundacja na rzecz Praw Ucznia] (registrar number: 0000814229), which he founded as a minor thanks to the permission from the family court. Since 2020, he had been also the chairman of the Main Committee of the Student Rights Knowledge Olympiad and, since 2021, an observer on behalf of the Foundation to Child Rights Connect in Geneva.

Since March 2024, he has been a member of the Student Rights and Duties Advisory Team to the Polish Minister of Education. On October 1st 2026, he began serving as the Minister of Education’s Plenipotentiary for Students and Youth Policy.

Graduate of the IInd General Zamoyska and Helena Modrzejewska High School in Poznań with 13 titles of laureate or finalist of national Olympiads, as well as 2 laureate titles of national knowledge contests.

In 2017, the Speaker of the XXIIIrd session of the Children and Youth Sejm [Sejm Dzieci i Młodzieży; Sejm is Polish first parliamentary chamber]. From 2018 to 2022, co-organizer of the Young People's Parliament of the Republic of Poland (in its first edition called the Parliament of Children and Youth, initiated as a result of the cancellation of the XXIVth session of the Children and Youth Sejm in 2018). Founder and former managing editor of the "Gazeta Kongresy" – a youth magazine published monthly.

In every year in which Mikołaj was eligible to apply, he has been awarded the scientific scholarships from the University of Warsaw's Rector and the Minister. In addition, the Rafal Brzoska Foundation scholarship recipient from 2023 to 2025. In 2020, the only nominee from Poland for the International Children's Peace Prize. In 2023 the winner of the main prize of the Tadeusz Mazowiecki Warsaw Mayor's Award for Young People Active for Civil Society (one of 3 main prize winners out of 91 nominations).

In 2024, named as one of 10 finalists (and the only one from Europe) of the Global Student Prize award out of more than 11,000 nominated from 176 countries.

In 2025, he was decorated with the Medal of the National Education Commission.

From February 2022 to June 2023, he worked at the Short-Term Shelter Point for Ukrainian Refugees run by the City of Warsaw — firstly as a volunteer, from May 2022 as a full-time employee of the Warsaw Crisis Intervention Center, mainly on the night shifts (to combine the work with his Foundation and two degrees). The point ended its activity at the end of June 2023 due to the corresponding decision of the Warsaw's City Hall. During its operation it welcomed more than 7,000 people.