Kon is a qualified Lawyer, Social Worker and Teacher and has been recognised for his community service with an Order of Australia Medal, and dozens of other awards including an Honorary Doctor of Laws and a Churchill Fellowship.
Kon is also a twice published author, his memoir ‘The Power of Hope’ by Harper Collins and his Greek cookbook ‘Philoxenia - A Seat At My Table’ co-authored with his mother, Sia Karapanagiotidis, by Hardie Grant Books. He is a keen gardener and cook, well known public speaker and advocate for a range of social causes.
Kon was the first in his family to go to high school. He is the son of Greek migrants and the grandson of Pontian refugees. Inspired by his own family's experiences of displacement, migration, racism and discrimination, Kon became passionate about human rights and social justice. Kon has spent his life in service to the community since the age of 18, having volunteered in more than two dozen charities from Indigenous, youth, homeless, mental health, community legal centres to people living with HIV/AIDS and children’s charities.
At the age of 28 Kon founded his own charity, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in the space of 8 weeks as a class project with the TAFE students he was teaching at the time. It has since gone on to save and enhance the lives of thousands of refugees, change national laws, narratives and policies, engage with thousands of volunteers together with refugees to do this work.
Kon has also raised, with his incredible fundraising team at the ASRC, more than a quarter of a billion dollars through the support of hundreds of thousands of Australians to power the work of the ASRC. Since it began, the ASRC has helped more than 30,000 people seeking asylum and refugees, as a charity that takes no funding from the Australian Government on principle.