An email from International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life sent out on Monday announced that the keynote speaker for this year’s ’Deis Impact will be Alan Khazei. He is a co-founder of City Year, a program that partners with AmeriCorps and focuses on helping high-need public high schools.

City Year’s website explains their mission, saying, “At City Year, we’re working to bridge the gap in high-poverty communities between the support the students in the communities actually need and what their schools are designed to provide. In doing so, we’re helping to increase graduation rates across the country, and making an impact in the lives of the students we serve.”

Khazei began City Year in 1988 with his roommate at Harvard University, Michael Brown. Though based in Boston, City Year now operates in 20 U.S. cities as well as in Johannesburg and London.

Named one of “America’s 25 Best Leaders” by US News and World Report in 2006, he is also the CEO of Be The Change, a non-profit organization that “creates and manages national issue-based campaigns driven by broad cross-sector coalitions that inspire culture change and accelerate public policy development to bring about positive changes in our society,” according to their website.Khazei has been a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts and teaches each spring at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

The keynote address will be in Levin Ballroom on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the ’Deis Impact Festival of Social Justice.