Born in Colombia,  with Lithuanian parents I attended a french school. I have a french Maitrise in Mathematics, and a Magister in Philosophy in Colombia. I have a doctorate degree honoris causa from Paris 8. After many years of teaching at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, I became chancellor, for two years and a half, later I was elected twice as the Mayor of Bogotá (1995-1997; 2001-2003). I created the "Citizens' Culture" approach. The main idea is a participatory change of customs through citizens' interaction and assuming and adopting a pedagogical agenda as part of the duties of the Mayor's office. Clientelistic pressures were neutralised through grasping to the law and drawing citizens into strategic planing of the city; "Life is sacred" was the main message. The results were a huge reduction of deaths in traffic accidents: we dealt   with chaotic traffic with mimes while the corrupt  traffic police was fired. And with a wide scope of tools that included voluntary and coercive  disarmament we reduced in both terms the homicide rate. In response to a huge crisis in water supply, citizens saved water voluntarily. In both terms we promised to rise taxes, and we did, an important step was inviting people to pay voluntary taxes. 63000 families did so. Corruption was successfully fought: "Public resources, sacred resources". For more than ten years I have been the head of Corpovisionarios, an NGO that continues to promote the citizens' culture approach through giving advice to governments and mayors. One of the tools we use is a survey about citizen's culture.