Aaron Rasmussen is an entrepreneur, inventor, and game designer. He's best known as a founder of educational platforms MasterClass and Outlier.org, the latter known for creating impactful for-credit online college courses with the aim of promoting affordable, equitable education. Students at Outlier receive transcripted transferable credits from the University of Pittsburgh. Outlier recently launched associate degrees with Golden Gate University that cost less than the average Pell Grant award enabling students to receive an education at zero cost to them. At MasterClass, Rasmussen was both Creative Director and CTO, creating courses taught by notable experts. The video game he co-wrote, BlindSide, has won multiple awards and is being adapted into a film.

Alex Beard is a critically acclaimed writer and educator. His book Natural Born Learners is a user's guide to transforming learning in the twenty-first century, taking readers on a dazzling global tour into the future of education, from Silicon Valley to Seoul, Helsinki to Hounslow. After starting out as an English teacher in a London comprehensive, he completed his MA at the Institute of Education before joining Teach For All, a growing global network of organizations working to ensure that all children fulfil their potential. He is fortunate to spend his time travelling the world in search of the practices that will shape the future of learning and has written about his experiences for the Guardian, Financial Times, Evening Standard, Independent and Wired.

Amy Mackinnon is a staff writer for Foreign Policy magazine. She began her journalism career as a freelancer in her native Scotland before moving to Moscow, where she joined the media start-up Coda Story as senior editor. Amy received a 2018 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award for her reporting on homophobic vigilantes for the radio documentary “Russia’s New Scapegoats,” co-produced by Coda Story and Reveal. Her work has been published by BBC Radio Scotland, Slate, CNN, and Vice, among others. She has a master’s in Russian and East European studies from the University of Glasgow and Corvinus University of Budapest, and a master’s degree from the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Although she is originally from Scotland, Americans can understand her accent just fine. Really.

Anshel Pfeffer has been reporting on Israeli and international affairs for twenty-two years. He is currently a senior correspondent and columnist for Haaretz and the Israel correspondent of The Economist, as well as reporting regularly from Israel for The Times, The Sunday Times and The Jewish Chronicle. Over the course of his career, he has covered politics, security, education, religion, the Jewish diaspora, as well as reporting from over thirty countries.His critically-acclaimed biography, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu was published in 2018.

Abduweli Ayup is a writer, activist and linguist specializing in Uyghur language education. He spent nine years lecturing in Northwest Minzu University and Xinjiang Financial and Economics University. Abduweli opened language schools and kindergartens in the city of Ürumchi and Kashgar in 2011. Following his arrest in August 2013, accused of promoting separatist activity, Abduweli spent 15 months in detention, before fleeing from China to Turkey with his family. In 2016, Abduweli founded Uyghur Hjelp, a non profit Uyghur human rights advocacy, documentation and humanitarian aid organization. Since 2019, Abduweli has lived in Bergen as a writer-in-residence through the ICORN program. He has published six books in Uyghurs. His first English book will be published in September 2024 by Silkie Publishing House.

Adam is the founder of Neuhaus Ideas, an ideas production company. Before that, Adam spent 7+ years as head of development for 30for30, ESPN Films and ESPN+ developing and producing 100+ storytelling projects across feature length documentaries, docuseries, scripted adaptations, digital series, and 30for30 Podcasts.  Adam is longtime supporter of the Ghetto Film School, previously serving on the Board of Directors and currently serving on the Advisory Board. Adam also serves on the Board of Directors for the Bushwick Film Institute and proudly serves as a mentor for Unlock Her Potential.

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Adam Pincus is an award-winning creative executive with a background that includes scripted and nonfiction television, narrative and documentary film, audio and digital content. He has been an independent producer, a network executive and head of an independent studio. Along the way he’s been awarded a Peabody, an Emmy, a Webby, a BDA Gold for broadcast design, and the Cannes Lion; his projects have been nominated for Gotham, Independent Spirit, and Academy Awards. In 2019, Pincus founded Best Case Studios, a producer of narrative audio series, film and TV, which has included two innovative “podcast movies” for C13Features. Prior to Best Case, Pincus helped found Topic Studios, where he was Executive Vice President, Programming & Content. He is an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and in the Entertainment, Media and Technology Program at NYU’s Leonard H. Stern School of Business. He has been a writer for numerous film publications and Contributing Editor for FILMMAKER Magazine.

Aigerim Berdibaeva is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, media specialist, communicator, and blogger. Currently, she works as a journalist at "Azattyk Media," where she hosts the "Daniste" program and also anchors the "Eje-Sindiler" program. Aigerim Akylbekova produces programs on social issues. Aigerim Akylbekova has worked as a communicator on various UN projects in Kyrgyzstan and implemented campaigns in the media to promote women's rights.

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Alice Zhuravel is a Ukrainian social researcher and entrepreneur who engages in cross-disciplinary activity aimed at fostering positive, cohesive, and sustainable futures. Over the past two years, in response to the polycrisis following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alice has been actively engaged in humanitarian and social work. Drawing upon her professional background at the intersection of humanitarianism and creativity, this year Alice founded TOZHSAMIST, a social initiative that’s an experiential platform for multidisciplinary discussion aimed at creating a more cohesive and sustainable future. Raised in Ukrainian society as a biracial person, Alice brings to the forefront an intercultural and multi-perspective mindset. Alice studied History (BSc: Kharkiv, Ukraine), and researched Ukrainian Identity as a fellow at CIRCE (Creative Impact Research Center Europe, Berlin, Germany).

A journalist specializing on women’s rights and gender equality in Kyrgyzstan. Bachelor’s degree from American University in Central Asia (Journalism and Mass Communication) and Master’s degree from Syracuse University (Public Administration). Experience in working as a journalist since 2012. Besides journalism, Aliya has worked for a number of international organizations based in Bishkek (Internews Kyrgyzstan, Soros-Foundation Kyrgyzstan, ACCELS, etc.) as a producer, communications specialist and media expert.

Aman Sethi is the Deputy Executive Editor at HuffPost, and the author of A Free Man. He was previously the Executive Editor for Strategy at BuzzFeed News and Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost India. His work spans tech, labour, migration, conflict and surveillance and has appeared in Granta, the Guardian, The New York Times, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy.

Andrey Babitskiy is a journalist. Before leaving Russia in February 2022, he has reported and provided political commentary for a number of Russia's (then existing) media of record. After moving to Tbilisi, Andrey has been working on a podcast, «Снова никогда» (“Never, again”), dedicated to the ethical and historical aspects of the man-made catastrophe we are living through. His article ახალი ხორცი [Fresh Meat] has made the case for learning and speaking Georgian.

Anna Myroniuk is the head of investigations and a cofounder at the Kyiv Independent. She is an award-winning journalist who investigated wrongdoings in the Ukraine army's leadership. Myroniuk also ran projects on political and corporate misconduct, illicit tobacco trade, and fraud in healthcare amid the Covid-19 pandemic. She has been extensively covering Russia's war against Ukraine since 2014.

CD, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Uganda & South Sudan

Anna Reismann, Country Director Uganda and South Sudan, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.
Anna Reismann has been actively involved in European and International Cooperation for more than a decade. From 2008 to 2010 she was working as a Deputy Country Director of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Ukraine before managing a Brussels based project of the European Network of Political Foundations (ENoP) on the EU enlargement towards the Western Balkan countries. Since 2012 she has served as Policy Advisor Andean Countries, Central America and Mexico at the headquarters of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. She spent two years (2016-2017) with her family in Rwanda.
Anna Reismann holds a Diploma Degree in Languages, Economics and Cultural Studies from the University of Passau.
She speaks German, Russian, English, Spanish and Ukrainian.

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Anusha Alikhan is Chief Communications Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, the global nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world. Before joining the Wikimedia Foundation, she was communications director for Knight Foundation, a leading funder of journalism and media innovation. She previously served as a communications officer with the United Nations advancing global peacekeeping initiatives, and has worked as a freelance journalist and editor covering local news and events in New York City. Before that, Anusha practiced employment and human rights law in her hometown of Toronto, Canada. She serves on the boards of The Communications Network and National Urban Fellows.

Armando Iannucci is a writer and broadcaster who has written, directed and produced numerous critically acclaimed films, television and radio comedy shows.

His screenplay for the film 'In The Loop' was nominated for an Oscar at the Academy Awards. His iconic series for the BBC – 'The Thick of It' – was nominated for 13 BAFTA Awards, winning 5 during its four series run. Among his own award-winning shows, he is also the co-creator and writer of the popular Steve Coogan character Alan Partridge.

Armando's HBO comedy 'Veep' has picked up numerous awards, including four Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series over the last four years. His film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'The Personal History of David Copperfield' was released in January 2020, which has won numerous awards including Best screenplay at the WGBA and Best Screenplay at BIFA, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe, and won a 'Seal Distinction' from the US Critics' Choice Association.

In 2017 he published 'Hear Me Out', a new book on classical music, and released the feature film 'The Death of Stalin', which was nominated for 2 BAFTAs and won Best Comedy at the European Film Awards. The second season of HBO's 'Avenue 5', which stars Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad, aired in 2022.

Aziza Raimberdieva is a digital editor with expertise in data and visual storytelling. She founded one of the first data teams in Central Asia at Kloop.kg. She worked on impactful projects which were awarded and shortlisted for Cannes Lions and Sigma Awards. Now Aziza is RFE/RL's Levin-Utkin Fellow.

Bao Nguyen is an Emmy-nominated Vietnamese-American filmmaker whose work has appeared on HBO, Netflix, the New York Times, and ESPN among many others. He directed Be Water, a deep dive into the life and journey of Bruce Lee, which competed in the U.S. Documentary Competition category at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on ESPN, becoming the most watched ESPN 30 for 30 film ever. His latest film, The Greatest Night in Pop, a feature documentary about the making of the seminal global hit song, "We Are the World", world premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and launched globally on Netflix. In addition to his directing work, he is a partner at EAST Films, a production company based in Vietnam looking to elevate Vietnamese cinema domestically and abroad.

Becky is Coda Story’s Senior Audio Producer. She produced and co-wrote Coda’s podcast series for Audible – ‘Undercurrents: Tech, Tyrants and Us’. Before joining Coda Becky spent 25 years with the BBC as a foreign news producer, for radio and TV. She was based in South Africa and Kenya for 7 years, and before than spent many years in Asia. With the BBC she produced the award-winning ‘Blood Lands’ podcast, a true crime story set in rural South Africa. She also produced BBC News’ first virtual reality news documentaries and is especially interested in using spatial sound to create immersive experiences.

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Betelihem Melkamu Essa's story begins in Geza, a rural village in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia, where she spent the first decade of her life in a close-knit community without electricity, running water, or cell phones but with love, community, and hope. In 2015, at the age of 10, Essa was adopted and moved to Mexico City with her mother. She attended The American School Foundation, where she was a member of the Cross Country and Track and Field teams. After three and a half years, they relocated to California, where Essa attended Girls Middle School and Menlo School. Essa held roles in student government and at Object, a non-profit organization that hosts inspirational talks by successful women to empower young girls. In 2020, Essa was selected as a T-Mobile ChangeMaker for her work with Object, participating in workshops co-led by John Legere and Nadya Okamoto.

Branko Brick started his book publishing career in 1984 in what was then Yugoslavia. The highlights included the complete works of William Shakespeare, Complete Greek Tragedies and Miroslav’s Gospel, the Serbian nation’s holiest book, which was included in Unesco’s Memory of the World upon re-publication. In South Africa, Branko launched, and edited, several publications, including the magazines Timbila, Brainstorm, Maverick and Empire, and the newspaper 168, South Africa’s final weekend newspaper. In late 2009, Branko launched Daily Maverick, an online daily with readership of 12-million monthly unique visitors as of 20 March 2023. In June 2018, Branko won Nat Nakasa Award for Media Integrity, considered South Africa’s premier journalism award. The #GuptaLeaks, Daily Maverick’s most famous contribution so far, in collaboration with amaBhungane and News24, brought many more awards, among them the 2019 Global Shining Light Award, shared with Maria Ressa’s The Rappler in Philippines.

Branko Brick started his book publishing career in 1984 in what was then Yugoslavia. The highlights included the complete works of William Shakespeare, Complete Greek Tragedies and Miroslav’s Gospel, the Serbian nation’s holiest book, which was included in Unesco’s Memory of the World upon re-publication. In South Africa, Branko launched, and edited, several publications, including the magazines Timbila, Brainstorm, Maverick and Empire, and the newspaper 168, South Africa’s final weekend newspaper. In late 2009, Branko launched Daily Maverick, an online daily with readership of 12-million monthly unique visitors as of 20 March 2023. In June 2018, Branko won Nat Nakasa Award for Media Integrity, considered South Africa’s premier journalism award. The #GuptaLeaks, Daily Maverick’s most famous contribution so far, in collaboration with amaBhungane and News24, brought many more awards, among them the 2019 Global Shining Light Award, shared with Maria Ressa’s The Rappler in Philippines.

Cate Adams is the Vice President at Warner Bros. Pictures

Cristian Lupşa is the founder and editor of DoR (Decât o Revistă), a quarterly magazine devoted to narrative journalism and telling the stories of modern day Romania. He also writes, lectures, and trains people on the transformational impact true stories can have on a culture still seeking its identity. Cristian graduated from the University of Bucharest in 2003, and then, in 2005, earned an MA in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia, the world’s oldest journalism school. He returned to Romania in 2007, and joined Esquire Romania as a senior editor. In 2009, Cristian and a group of rebellious journalists started DoR, a magazine – though some would call it a movement – predicated on the idea that good nonfiction storytelling can change people and communities. In 2011, continuing the mission of DoR, they started The Power of Storytelling, an international storytelling conference which has grown to be the largest in the region. Cristian is also an alumni of Aspen Institute Romania’s Young Leaders program. He spent the 2013-2014 academic year as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Carole Cadwalladr is a renowned Pulitzer-nominated journalist for the Guardian, feature writer for the Observer, and Cambridge Analytica investigator. She formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph, and was nominated for numerous Press Awards.

Cadwalladr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting in 2019, receiving praise upon her investigation and coverage into Cambridge Analytica and its role in Brexit. Cadwalladr’s sheer dedication in exposing a nexus of corruption that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being called before Congress, and exposing Cambridge Analytica’s role in mass-harvesting data to influence elections (Brexit and Trump), goes far beyond the question of Remain or Leave. Her investigation also interrogates the role we have been puppeteered to play in a 2017 Britain that took its first step into an undemocratic world.

In April 2019, Cadwalladr gave a TED talk, “Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threats to democracy”, regarding her the links found between Facebook and the Brexit election.   This talk led to worldwide acclaim but it also sparked a three year long lawsuit which was won by Carole in June 2022.  This case was one of several brought against her and other leading journalists and they are thought to be motivated by powerful individuals and firms to tie up the press in expensive and time consuming legal defenses (these are called SLAPP suits).

Also in 2019, she was featured in the acclaimed Netflix documentary ‘The Great Hack‘ – this Bafta nominated film explored the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer.

Cadwalladr has won other awards, including the British Journalism Awards: Technology Journalism Award in December 2017 and The Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2018. She is the author of The Family Tree, published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize.  She is currently at work on a new book.

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Christopher Wylie is a social researcher and data scientist. He has served as a senior adviser in both the British and Canadian governments, and has extensive experience using technology to improve communication and citizen engagement. With an avid interest in cultural applications of technology, his postgraduate research focused on fashion trend forecasting. Christopher Wylie is the former Director of Research for Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, which was a UK-based military contractor specializing in information warfare. He witnessed firsthand how culture, information and algorithms were being weaponized by militaries, governments and companies to undermine elections around the world. In 2018, Wylie worked with The Guardian and New York Times as a whistleblower to expose how social media data was being exploited and turned against ordinary citizens. His testimonies at the United States Congress and British Parliament served as a wake-up call for many and have quickly led to new legislative proposals in both countries.

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Cinthia Membreño is the Audience Loyalty Manager of CONFIDENCIAL, an independent Nicaraguan media outlet working in exile, in Costa Rica. She leads its Membership Program and yearly donation campaigns, as well as the initiatives that bring journalists and readers together.

Claudia Milne is senior vice president, Standards and Practices for CBS News and Stations, where she oversees all CBS News editorial standards and ensures they are being maintained across all CBS News, stations and digital platforms.

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David Owen co-founded IDEA in 2009 with his partner Angela Hill. The company began by sourcing rare vintage art and design reference books for the fashion industry, with retail spaces in Colette and Dover Street Market, London. Interest in IDEA grew rapidly via Instagram and the company turned to publishing with titles by photographers including Willy Vanderperre, Alasdair McLellan, Glen Luchford and brands like Palace Skateboards, Vetements, Stussy and Gucci. IDEA also began to produce merchandise including bags and hats and apparel. IDEA shirts and sweatshirts are now carried in 40 stores worldwide. IDEA also consults on Instagram and social media for a number of companies and runs a motion graphics studio. 2019 will see new books published by Self Service, Harmony Korine for Gucci, Purienne and Harley Weir.

Dzmitry Hurnievic is a correspondent in Prague for RFE/RL's Belarus Service. He graduated from the Institute of Media Education and Journalism of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. He worked for Polish Radio (2006-2016) and Belsat TV (2007-2016). He has been with RFE/RL since 2016.

Emily Goligoski is Research Director for the Membership Puzzle Project, a collaboration between the Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent and New York University. She previously worked as a user experience research lead in The New York Times newsroom and brought design research to the Mozilla Foundation. Emily completed her Master’s in Learning, Design & Technology at Stanford while conducting user research at Intel Labs. She previously worked at Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) and studied journalism at Northwestern.

Elena Nechaeva is a journalist, producer, blogger, and media trainer. She has been working in television journalism since 2012. Since 2019, she has been actively involved in the digital transformation of traditional media and creating new media on various internet platforms. She is the author of a YouTube blog about disinformation and propaganda. She has been producing the Sisterhood program since 2021 and works on repackage the project for different platforms.

Eliza Anyangwe joined CNN in February 2021 as editor of the award-winning global gender inequality project As Equals.

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She began her career working for international development and environmental NGOs but has spent over a decade in media, working at The Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and, most recently, member-funded journalism platform The Correspondent where she was managing editor.

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In 2016, Eliza founded The Nzinga Effect, a media project focused on telling the stories of African and Afro-descendant women. She's a seasoned media commentator for TV and radio (appearing on BBC Newsnight, PRI's The World, Our Body Politic among others); a moderator, hosting events and panels for organisations including Dell, Southbank Centre, Stockholm International Water Institute, ITC, Ecosoc and Government of Belgium; and is contributing author to 'Africa's Media Image in the 21st Century', published by Routledge.

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Emanuele Del Rosso is an Italian communication specialist and award-winning political cartoonist. He is currently Head of Communications with the European Press Prize, and Deputy Director of the European Cartoon Award. He publishes his cartoons in several magazines and online newspapers. Among them: Le Monde, Washington Post, Courrier International, Charlie Hebdo, Le Temps, The Japan Times, and the Nation. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Cartoon Movement, and since 2020 a member of Cartooning for Peace. In 2018, he won the second prize in the political cartoon competition “Libex 2018”. He won the Italian “Strike” competition for young talents. In 2019, he won the second prize in the “Inktspotprijs 2019”.

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Erica Benner is a political philosopher and historian of ideas. Born in Tokyo, she grew up in Japan and the UK and has taught at Oxford, Yale, and the LSE. Erica currently teaches at the Hertie School for Governance in Berlin and LSE Ideas in London. Her fifth and most recent book, Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power (Penguin Allen Lane 2024), was a Financial Times pick for What to Read in 2024. Her other books include Be Like the Fox (Penguin Allen Lane 2017), a biography of Machiavelli that was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize and a BBC Book of the Week.

Erica Hellerstein is a senior reporter with Coda Story. She joined the newsroom in 2020, after spending nearly a decade covering politics and human rights across the U.S. and Latin America for media outlets including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Marie Claire, Elle, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News.

At Coda, she’s reported on the growing climate grief movement, historical memory in the American South, the expansion of surveillance along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the U.S. librarians caught in the crosshairs of book bans, among other subjects. In 2022, her Coda feature comparing historical reckonings in Germany and the United States won the Online News Association’s award for explanatory reporting. Other work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Association for Alternative Newsmedia, and the Clay Felker Prize for Excellence in Longform Journalism. She received her B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University and a Masters in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley.

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BIOGRAPHY OF FADY ASLY

-Chairman of ICC Regional Consultative Group (North Africa, Broader Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia) since 2023
-Member of the Board of Trustees of Dobrodeearium Ukraine since 2022
-Member of UNICEF Business Advisory Board since 2022
-Special Representative of the ICC Global Secretary-General for the Caucasus and Central Asia since 2021
-Chairman of Channel Georgia Consulting since 2016
-Member of the Investor's Council under the Prime Minister of Georgia since 2015
-Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Georgian Mines and Energy since 2012
-Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce in Georgia since 2008
-Chairman of Agritechnics Holding since 1998

Author of:
-Life with Scorpions-2016
-Mirrors and Illusions- 2020

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Raised in Germany and trained by Haarmann & Riemer (now Symrise), Geza has worked as a perfumer with Diesel, Ormonde Jayne, Baldessarini and Boris Bidjan Saberi. His cutting-edge synthetic ingredients have placed him at the center of some of the 21st century’s most dynamic fragrances, from cult favorites like Boudicca Wode and Paper Passion, to the breathtaking opulence of the beautiful mind series. Geza is the driving force behind the bestselling Escentric Molecules brand, a project that highlights the often ovelooked Iso E Super aroma-molecule known for its velvety and cocooning effect. Geza is known for pushing the boundaries of the fragrance industry and collaborates with artists across the creative spectrum. Working with German artist Wolfgang Georgsdorf he created the Smeller, a piano-like instrument that allows the user to play their own “aromascapes.” Sometimes outrageous, always outspoken, and truly unique, Geza Schön is living proof the future of niche perfume is bright.

Galen Hooks is a VMA-nominated choreographer, performer, and director who has worked with over 70 artists, from Camila Cabello, Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus, to Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Usher and Rihanna. Her theater work includes Associate Co-Choreographer for the Broadway revival of Dreamgirls. Producing credits include America’s Got Talent  (Associate Consulting Producer), The Voice (Associate Performance  Producer), Disney Channel Presents: Radio Disney’s Family VIP Birthday  (Executive Producer and Creative Director), and YouTube’s “Masterclass“ (Consulting Producer and Host). She has won multiple World Choreography Awards and performs everywhere from The Oscars, The Guggenheim and the Super Bowl, to iconic music videos. Galen now shares invaluable knowledge through her life-changing  intensives, The Galen Hooks Method, which uses dance to transform students of any background and ability.

Gary Shteyngart is The New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure and the novels Super Sad True Love Story, Lake Success, Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. For his books, he has been a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in 30 countries. His latest novel, Our Country Friends, was a New York Times bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Kirkus Review, and others.

Italian-Dutch journalist Gian Paolo Accardo is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the European independent and multilingual news website Voxeurop. He also contributes to Internazionale. He was previously deputy news editor of Courrier international and correspondent for the press agency TMNews, as well as for several Italian and French news outlets. He lives between Brussels and Paris.

With a 20-year career in broadcast television, print, radio and digital, Gillian Dobias works as a producer and content strategist, combining her editorial credentials with brand experience to deliver powerful stories with a memorable message. Gillian's career in television began at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation working as a producer on "The Journal", "On The Arts" and "Fashion File". BBC commissions followed with “The Desk” and “Counter Culture”. In 2007 Gillian joined the launch team at Monocle in charge of editorial & commercial films. Gillian was integral to the launch of Monocle Radio and continues to contribute as a regular presenter. Now working as an independent Gillian harnesses her background in journalism, film and audio to produce bespoke content for companies wishing to tell their stories through the moving image, spoken word and/or in print.

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Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2000, Giorgi studied the piano without ever thinking about a professional career as a pianist. He is passionate about the folksongs of his country, which he likes to arrange and sing. He even participated in the Georgian ‘The Voice’ and won the competition at the age of thirteen! However, he continued his musical training at the Paliashvili Central Music School for Gifted Children and entered the Tbilisi State Conservatory, in the class of Revaz Tavadze.

Giorgi’s pianistic career took a decisive turn in April 2019 when he won First Prize at the Vigo International Piano Competition, with Martha as president of the jury and Nelson Freire at her side. A few months later, Giorgi won Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the Sixty-Second Busoni Competition.

In 2021, when he received the Hortense Anda- Bührle Special Prize at the Fifteenth Géza Anda Piano Competition in Zurich; this was followed by an invitation to take part in the KlavierOlymp in Bad Kissingen, where he won First Prize and the Audience Prize. In March 2023, Giorgi celebrated another great success: He won the 2nd Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition and was also awarded the Junior Jury Prize, the Prize for the best chamber music and 5 out of 6 audience prizes.

Since September 2021, Giorgi has been studying with Nelson Goerner in Geneva. He is supported by the Lisa Batiashvili Foundation and the Géza Anda-Foundation. In the 2022/23 season he is a Classeek Ambassador artist. He is supported by Bayer Kultur’s stARTacademy. Alongside his career as a classical pianist, he has created with his friends an electronic and experimental music group, Tsduneba, which means ‘temptation’ in Georgian.

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Hans Gutbrod teaches at Ilia State University, and also works as a consultant in policy research, and led a high-impact campaign to increase the transparency of research funding. His book Ethics of Political Commemoration: Towards a New Paradigm (with David Wood), draws on experiences from Armenia, Georgia, Ireland, Lebanon, and Libya, while connecting to mainstream debates in Western Europe and the United States, and will be published in August 2023. He is on Twitter at @HansGutbrod.

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After graduating at the Rotterdam Artschool, I took in 1993 my Masters Degree at the National Film and Television School in England. The Nipkow Program in Berlin granted me a fellowship in 2002/03.

With writer Arthur Japin I realized in 2001 my first feature Magonia (Golden Tulip Best Film IFF Istanbul, Circulo Precolombino Best Film in Bogota). My second feature, The Aviatrix of Kazbek (Commersant Press Prize IFF Moscow) closed the 2010 IFF Rotterdam.

Since 2003 I made several documentaries: Poetins Mama and Black Gold under Notecka Forest (Silver Wolf Competition IDFA), Transit Dubai (IDFA, Audience Award IFF Gdansk) and Stand By Your President (IDFA). I’m currently working on a new film in Abkhazia.

Since 2011 I cooperate with radiomaker Jeroen Stout on sound/new media projects. I coach (international) projects of young makers, give workshops and advise funds and organizations. I live and work between The Netherlands and Georgia since 1989.

Inga Thordar is an award-winning editor and experienced newsroom leader and media executive. She was the Executive Editor of CNN Digital Worldwide, overseeing all international news, sport and programming teams for more than 6 years, running teams in London, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Lagos and NY. She was previously Senior Editor at the BBC bringing together TV and digital production teams and commissioning. She edited the BBC's news front page as well as lead digital innovations on both TV and radio platforms. She is a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion in newsrooms and has led changes and initiatives in both organisations in this field. An Iceland native, Inga is based in London.

Irena Popiashvili is a curator and writer. She is currently the Dean and founder of Visual Arts, Architecture & Design School, VA[A}DS, at the Free University of Tbilisi.

She is also a founder of contemporary art space Kunsthalle Tbilisi.

Previously she co-owned the Newman Popiashvili Gallery in New York (2005-2012), served as a director of the State Academy of Arts in Tbilisi in 2012. Ms. Popiashvili has curated exhibitions in the US and Europe (i.e. Georgian Pavilion in the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2003). Her writing has appeared in Art Forum and Vienna Contemporary among other leading publications. She received a BA from Tbilisi State University and University of Lodz, Poland and an MA in art history from University of Georgia in Athens, GA (USA).

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Isaac Otidi Amuke’s reportage, op-eds and nonfiction have appeared in the literary journal Kwani?, Commonwealth Writers, Wasafiri, Adda Stories, Solitude Atlas, the New African, the Chimurenga Chronic, Brittle Paper, the Mail and Guardian, the Sunday Nation, the East African, The Elephant, The Continent and Africa Is A Country. Amuke received the 2013 Jean Jacques Rousseau Fellowship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany, and contributed the title piece for ''Safe House; Explorations in Creative Nonfiction'' (Dundurn/Cassava Republic 2016), an anthology of nonfiction from Africa edited by Ellah Wakatama. He was a finalist for the 2016 CNN Multichoice African Journalist of the Year Awards and the 2018 Gerald Kraak Award. His long-read, “The Rise and Fall of Mike Sonko - Nairobi’s Matatu King” is a finalist for the 2023 True Story Award. When not writing, Amuke works as editor-in-chief at Debunk Media, a Nairobi-based independent newsroom.

Joe oversees creative development of digital channels at Conde Nast Entertainment, leading the creation of franchises across the portfolio, as well as being the creator and interviewer of Vogue’s 400 million-view celebrity interview franchise "73 QuestionsJoe started his career as a founder of a digital lab at HBO, where his independent directing and remixing career took off with a viral recap of every season of the Sopranos. In 2010 he gave a TED talk on storytelling, co-hosted Boing Boing TV on Virgin America airlines, sits on the programming board of The Moth, and is co-founder of the YouTube channel “CDZA”, a 300,000-subscriber channel which featured over 150 conservatory musicians in high concept music videos. As a one-man creative shop, he has created ideas and videos for such companies as Google, CFDA Fashion Awards, Interscope Records, BBC America, Comcast, ATT, and others.

Joe is the most ardent American fan of Georgia and unofficial ambassador. He has been to Georgia 16 times since 2006, can read and write kartuli, co-owned Piano (on Tabidze street), and currently co-owns DASTA. He once drove in a crappy car from England to Mongolia, plays classical piano, had a license plate that spelled “RIKROLL”, is an Italian dual citizen and is the 2007 International Pun Champion.

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Jacqui Park is a journalist, editor and strategic designer with deep experience telling stories and building journalism communities around media innovation, press freedom and high-integrity journalism. Her most recent research looks at how local and new media around the world are rethinking everything, and she is designing programs to support media to do this.

She is Senior Fellow for Media Innovation at the University of Technology, Sydney and writes a regular newsletter, The Story, on how new media are reimagining the journalism. Currently the head of network strategy and innovation for the International Press Institute (IPI), she was founding CEO of Australia’s Walkley Foundation for excellence and innovation in journalism, founding Asia-Pacific Director for the International Federation of Journalists and a 2016 JS Knight fellow at Stanford University, focusing on media innovation and strategic design.

Jake Friedman is a manager and producer who has contributed to numerous #1 albums, sold-out tours, and critically acclaimed works in music, theater, and film. He launched his own record label at the age of 19 and led We Are Free Management for a decade. In 2019, he co-founded Crush Works, where he manages artists across multiple disciplines while producing notable works like 'Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself' for Disney+ and 'Neal Brennan: Blocks' on Netflix.

Jaŭhien Kazarcaŭ — journalist and website editor of Belarusian independent media European radio for Belarus (euroradio.fm). After the presidential elections in 2020 was forced to work from exile, now based in Warsaw, Poland, and focusing on questions of content distribution and media-to-audience contact.

Joe Sabia oversees creative development of digital channels at Conde Nast Entertainment, leading the creation of franchises across the portfolio, as well as being the creator and interviewer of Vogue’s 400 million-view celebrity interview franchise, "73 Questions”. Joe started his career as a founder of a digital lab at HBO, where his independent directing and remixing career took off with a viral recap of every season of the Sopranos. In 2010, he gave a TED talk on storytelling, co-hosted Boing Boing TV on Virgin America airlines. He sits on the programming board of The Moth, and is co-founder of the YouTube channel “CDZA”, a 300,000-subscriber channel. As a one-man creative shop, he has created ideas and videos for such companies as Google, CFDA Fashion Awards, Interscope Records, BBC America, Comcast, ATT, and others. Joe is the most ardent American fan of Georgia and unofficial ambassador. He has been to Georgia 16 times since 2006, can read and write kartuli, co-owned Piano (on Tabidze street), and currently co-owns DASTA.

Jon Lee Anderson is an internationally recognised journalist, author, and war correspondent. He began his reporting career in the early 1980s, chronicling Central America’s civil wars for TIME magazine and other journals. As a New Yorker staff writer since 1998, he has covered numerous international conflicts, including those in Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Mali, Liberia, and Central African Republic. Anderson’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, El Pais, Internazionale, The Financial Times, and other publications. Jon Lee has also written about well-known contemporary figures, such as Gabriel García Márquez, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, Augusto Pinochet, Spain’s King Juan Carlos, and Saddam Hussein. He is the author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Guerrillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World, The Fall of Baghdad, and several other books. He has won a number of awards and distinctions, including several from the Overseas Press Club, as well as the Maria Moors Cabot Gold Medal for his reporting on Latin America. Jon Lee is on a number of journalism award juries, including the Swiss-based True Story Award, the Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Fund, and as a member of the board of directors of the Fundación Gabo (formerly New Journalism Foundation), founded by Gabriel García Márquez, he helps choose winners for the annual Premios Gabo. Once a year, he gives workshops to young Latin American reporters.

Julia Watson is a food writer and has contributed to publications including The Observer, The Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday, the Washington Post, Gourmet, The National Interest and other outlets. She has also broadcast on NPR. For almost a decade she was the Food Writer for international news agency United Press International and ran her own food web site, eatWashington.com. She twice won Gourmand International’s award for World’s Best French Cookbook. Bruno's Cookbook has just been published by Knopf in the US and by Quercus in the UK.

Julie Posetti is the Global Director of Research at the International Center for Journalists. She previously was a Senior Research Fellow at the RISJ and led the Journalism Innovation Project at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. She researches at the intersection of journalism, digital media, and freedom of expression. Posetti is the author of Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age (UNESCO 2017) and the co-editor of Journalism, ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation (UNESCO 2018). She was awarded her PhD in December 2018, and her academic research has been published internationally in peer reviewed journals and scholarly books. Dr Posetti brings over two decades of high-level international journalism practice to her research, including time as a news editor, documentary reporter and national political correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She has been awarded the Australian Human Rights Awards for Radio, and the Australian National Press Club’s ‘German Award for Journalism’. More recently, her work has been published by The Atlantic, Harvard University’s Nieman Lab, the BBC, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian.

Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, was greeted with wide critical acclaim and won the Scottish First Book Award. Kerry’s second novel, Thirst won the Prix Femina étranger, France’s most prestigious award for foreign fiction. Her new book, Lowborn, is a deeply personal story which will see Hudson return to the towns she grew up in around the UK. In returning to these places, she hopes to uncover long buried truths about her own life but also seeks to illuminate what life is really like for Britain’s poorest today.

Karina Merkuryeva is a journalist and impact strategist. She worked for several independent Russian media outlets. As RFE/RL’s Levin-Utkin Fellow she creates new storytelling formats for social media that boost audience engagement. As a journalist she focuses on human rights, feminism, rights of prisoners and migrants.

Journalist, documentarian and executive producer of the project "How are you?" - about refugees and internally displaced persons. Scholarship recipient of the Vaclav Havel Prize (joint program of Radio Liberty and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic). Kateryna was an author in investigative journalistic teams at Slidstvo.Info and at Suspilne (public TV)..

Kerry Paterson is deputy director of emergencies at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She helps guide CPJ’s emergency assistance and journalist safety work worldwide, and to shape CPJ’s response to crises. She joined CPJ in 2014 and before joining the emergencies department, served as deputy director of advocacy and communications. Prior to joining CPJ, Paterson worked with the Initiative for Conflict-Related Trauma, Médecins Sans Frontières, the Women’s Media Center’s Women Under Siege Project, and with Massachusetts General Hospital’s Division of Global Health and Human Rights.

Kira Brunner Don is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Stranger’s Guide, a travel publication that explores the power of place-based journalism. She has worked as a magazine editor in New York for 17 years and as a journalist in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She has received two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence in her role as Editor-in-Chief of Stranger’s Guide and one National Magazine Award in Photography for her photo curation. In 2022, she was named the FOLIO: Eddie and Ozzie Award’s Editor of the Year. She is co-editor of the book The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention and was the co-founder of the Oakland Book Festival.

Kristina Zakurdaeva is a digital editor and investigative journalist at RFE/RL’s Current Time. She also manages Levin-Utkin Fellowship that focuses on data journalism. Kristina specializes in long-form storytelling and digital projects production. She reports on gender-based violence and international politics. Recently, her work was featured in GIJN’s best women reporting.

Lindsey Hilsum  is an English television journalist and writer. She is the International Editor for Channel 4 News, and a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Guardian, New Statesman, and Granta.

Award-winning journalist and established digital executive with a proven track record of anticipating and driving transformational change in several of the world's most influential media and technology companies. My passion is making great media that is meaningful, accessible and delivers positive social impact in our rapidly changing industry environment. Early pioneer in social publishing, including mobile- and video-first content, collaborative open journalism, social media verification and emerging platform partnerships. I believe in strong journalism, transparent leadership, that diverse groups make better decisions, that data is an amazing tool to inform -- but not overwhelm -- a company's mission, and in iterative and goal-oriented strategy.

Ladan Anoushfar is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has produced, directed and edited films for BBC World, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and the Aga Khan Architecture Awards. She trained with cinema legend Abbas Kiarostami and double Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi in Iran where some of her projects are set. Her film The Sanctions Hotel won a silver medal at the New York Festivals Best Film and TV Awards in 2018 and was nominated for a Foreign Press Association award. In 2019 she edited Stealing From the Sick, winner of the AIB award for Investigative Documentary. For Black Leaf Films Ladan directed Never Again: America’s Battle of the Bullets, edited The Age of Bolsonaro and is developing a range of new programmes.

In 2005, Levan Ghambashidze graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Ilia Chavchavadze Tbilisi State University of Language and Culture. Subsequently, in 2007, he participated in the Erasmus Mundus master's program, embarking on a two-year educational journey across three universities: Luxembourg, Prague, and Bochum. Upon completion, he was awarded a master's degree.

From 2009 onwards, he has pursued further studies at Ilia State University, Tbilisi Art Academy, and Conservatory, while actively engaging in public activities. Notably, since 2016, he has been enrolled at the Guivy Zaldastanishvili American Academy of History and Philosophy, deepening his knowledge in these fields

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Lucy Westcott:  Lucy Westcott became director of CPJ’s Emergencies Department in October 2021. She oversees CPJ’s assistance and safety work worldwide. Westcott joined CPJ in 2018 as the James W. Foley Fellow. During her fellowship, she focused on safety issues for women journalists in non-hostile environments and assisted with the creation of safety resources for journalists globally. In 2021, she played a prominent role in CPJ’s response to the Afghan crisis, including helping Afghan journalists and their families evacuated to Qatar. Prior to joining CPJ, Westcott was a staff writer for Newsweek, where she covered gender and immigration. She has reported for outlets including The Intercept, Bustle, The Atlantic, and Women Under Siege, and was a United Nations correspondent for the Inter Press Service. As a fellow with the International Reporting Project in 2016, Westcott wrote about gender and development in South Africa and Lesotho. She has reported from Egypt, Jordan, Cameroon, and the U.S. She has a master’s in multi-platform journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

Margaret Coker is an award-winning investigative American journalist who has spent twenty years reporting in 32 different countries across the former Soviet Union, Middle East, Europe and Africa. She specializes in stories about authoritarian countries in transition, including Russia, Turkey and Libya. She is Disinformation Editor at Coda Story, and is currently writing a book about Iraq’s elite spy unit that successfully infiltrated the Islamic State and helped defeat the terror group.

Founder and CEO of News Revenue Hub, former Publisher of Voice of San Diego.

Matthew Janney is a freelance journalist based in London who writes about literature, culture and the post-Soviet space. His work has also appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The LA Review of Books and The Calvert Journal.

Magnus Gertten is an award-winning director from Malmö, Sweden. Among his latest docs are the investigating of an archive film reel in Every Face Has a Name (2015), the soccer portrait Becoming Zlatan (2016), the human rights doc Only the Devil Lives without Hope (2020) and the love story of Nelly & Nadine, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2022. Nelly & Nadine has so far been screened at more than 100 international film festivals and won 22 awards. Magnus Gertten’s documentaries are character-driven, often made in an intimate style and with a powerful emotional narrative. He has a strong passion for human stories, music and modern history.

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Maiia Guseva is a data journalist and RFE/RL’s Levin-Utkin Fellow. Passionate about using data analysis to craft compelling narratives, she produced a multitude of data-driven stories for independent media. Maiia is a data analyst for an award-winning project Editwars.org. She holds a Master’s degree in Data Journalism from HSE.

A journalist in Asia for more than 35 years, Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler's CEO and president, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail ten times to stay free. Rappler's battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, A Thousand Cuts.

In October 2021, Maria was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

For her courage and work on disinformation and 'fake news,' Maria was named one of Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century. She was also part of the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2019 and Prospect magazine's world's top 50 thinkers. In 2020, she received the Journalist of the Year award, the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the Most Resilient Journalist Award, the Tucholsky Prize, the Truth to Power Award, and the Four Freedoms Award. In 2021, UNESCO awarded her the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

Among many awards for her principled stance, she received the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford University, the Columbia Journalism Award, the Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute, and the Sergei Magnitsky Award for Investigative Journalism.

Maria was born in the Philippines but grew up in the United States after her family migrated to Toms River, New Jersey in 1973. She took up premed at Princeton University, where she graduated cum laude with a B.A. degree in English and certificates in theater and dance in 1986. She returned to Manila on a Fulbright fellowship in 1986 and worked for the newly liberated government station, People's Television 4, as director of newscasts then as head of its special projects team. In 1987, she began reporting for CNN and joined ABS-CBN as the director and producer of Probe, the first and longest running investigative news magazine in the Philippines, before helping set it up as a separate company, Probe Productions, Inc., in 1988.

Before co-founding Rappler, Maria focused on investigating terrorism in Southeast Asia. She opened and ran CNN's Manila Bureau for nearly a decade before moving to Indonesia and opening the network's Jakarta bureau, which she ran from 1995 to 2005. That was when she returned to Manila as the senior vice president in charge of ABS-CBN's multimedia news operations, managing about a thousand journalists for the largest news organization in the country.

Maria wrote Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism. She is writing her third book, How to Stand up to a Dictator, for publication in 2022.

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A writer and journalist, Maria has over a decade of experience reporting the news from Armenia and the region. She is the Founding Editor of EVN Report, an English-language news magazine. She was Associate Editor of the Armenian Reporter, Managing Editor at CivilNet, and a regular contributor to a number of Diaspora publications. She teaches Media & Society, Introduction to Journalism, and Research Methods.

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Mariane Pearl, co-founder of THE METEOR platform, is an award-winning journalist and writer who works in English, French and Spanish.

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She is the founder of WOMEN BYLINES, a first-time series of quality journalism and impactful multimedia narratives from women and girls worldwide for the local and global media. Women Bylines has so far produced more than 15 exclusive stories from Iraq, France and Mexico.

From 2013 until June 2020, Mariane served as the Managing Editor of the CHIME FOR CHANGE global journalism platform focused on helping women and girls speak for themselves. The platform has published hundreds of stories from more than 45 countries CHIME FOR CHANGE is founded by Gucci and the artists Beyoncé and Salma Hayek-Pinault.

Mariane is the author of “A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl” (Scribner.) First published in the United States in 2003, Mariane’s memoir celebrating the values of humanism and dignity  won international praise and was translated into 16 languages. In 2007, it was released as a major feature movie starring Angelina Jolie in the role of Mariane Pearl.

Her second book, “In Search of Hope” (Powerhouse) is a The column first appeared in the US edition of Glamour magazine. Mariane travelled to sixteen countries for a collection of profiles of extraordinary women from around the world.
Mariane Pearl is a contributor to The Washington Post, The METEOR, The New York Times, The Sunday Times, the Conde Nast traveler, Self Magazine and more. She has served as a jury for Freedom of Expression award, The Gucci Tribecca Fund, the Internews Human Rights Award, the Women of the Year award and others. She is also a member of several Advisory Boards such as Reuters Trust Law Women, CHIME FOR CHANGE and World Pulse. A prolific public speaker, Mariane has delivered speeches and conferences worldwide and in venues ranging from Berkeley and Duke University to the prestigious Radio City Hall in New York City with more than 8000 educators in attendance.

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Mariane is the recipient of the Indian Express Excellence in Journalism Award and the Anne Frank Award. She also received the National Headliners Award for Magazine Writing, the Time Warner Woman Award, the Woman of the Year Award, The White House Project Award, the AWRT (American Women in Radio and Television) Award, the Internews Award for Excellence in International Reporting, the Vital Voices Award, E l Mundo editorial award in Spain, the Prix Vérité in France for excellence in nonfiction writing.

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She is currently working on her third book, “A Fine Family Line”, a memoir set between Paris, New York City and Havana.

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Marina Bocharoba contributed for several Russian independent media, such as Novaya Gazeta, Forbes Russia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She was a correspondent for “Takie dela” media and special projects editor at “Kommersant”. Bocharova was an author and director for Coda story’s special project  “90s”. Marina Bocharova was a scriptwriter and director for the documentary film’s production company “Amurskie Volny”. She will be hosting RFE/RL's Georgian Service YouTube debate show “Echoes of  war “

Marisa Mazria Katz is a journalist and radio reporter whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Vogue, NPR, and more. In 2009, she initiated a journalism program for teens in Casablanca, Morocco, funded by the US State Department. Katz served as the founding editor of Creative Time Reports, a media site from public art nonprofit Creative Time that highlighted artists' perspectives on current issues, and collaborated with major news organizations like The Guardian and The Intercept. In 2018, she launched the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism with support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Recently, Marisa co-founded the Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting, fostering journalist-artist collaborations. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Martha Little is Senior Director of Creative Development at Audible, where she and her team has worked with talent ranging from Martin Sheen to Steph Curry to Queen Latifah. Her twenty-five-year career was built at major American public radio outlets: NPR (Day to Day, All Things Considered), APM (Marketplace), PRI (America Abroad, Studio 360) News Director at WBUR. Her work has been recognized by such awards as The Peabody, The Gracie, and Edward R. Murrow.    Martha played a critical role in creating and executing Audible’s Podcast Development Program. The program offers development, audio production, writing, and marketing support to a selected group of talented storytellers from around the world. She manages Audible’s investigative documentaries, docudramas, fiction, and non-fiction series.    Martha serves on the Board of The Podcast Academy, the host of the Ambie Awards.

Matthew Janney is a British-Georgian writer based in London and a former editor at TANK magazine. He writes about literature, culture and the Caucasus and his work has appeared in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the New Statesman, Coda Story, the Times Literary Supplement, and others. Before writing, Matthew played international rugby for Georgia.

Matthew Pye has been a teacher for over 20 years, first in the UK, then Germany and now for 14 years in Brussels. For over a decade, he has worked with leading scientists in sustainability, with a focus on climate change. Most notably, in 2011 in collaboration with Michael Wadleigh, Oscar winning director of ‘Woodstock’ (1970) and Birgit van Munster, he established the Climate Academy. This innovative work to hothouse small groups of students in the science and social realities of climate change was recognized by the offer of Full Membership to the Club of Rome (EU Chapter) in 2016. He has given numerous lectures on Climate Change and systems thinking, at the European Commission, Cambridge University, VU (Amsterdam), St Louis University (Brussels) and most recently in Kazakhstan; alongside talks and workshops in different schools in Europe. He co-authored the recent and widely applauded Philosophy syllabus (2019) for the European School system. His latest book, "Plato Tackles Climate Change" (2020) has recently been followed up with "Arendt Tackles Climate Change" (2024).

Merve Emre is an award-winning writer and critic. She is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and the Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. Her books, which include Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America, The Personality Brokers, The Ferrante Letters, and The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway, have been selected as best books by the New York Times, The Economist and NPR, and won the 2021 PROSE award for literature. She has been awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize, the Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker.

Latvian-born, U.S.-based novelist, screenwriter and director whose work includes films, books and TV series in Russian.

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is the co-author of Brothers of the Gun, an illustrated collaboration with Syrian war journalist Marwan Hisham, which was a New York Times Notable Book and long-listed for the 2018 National Book Award. Her memoir, Drawing Blood, received global praise and attention. Her animated films have been nominated for three Emmys and won an Edward R. Murrow Award. Molly’s reportage has been published in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. She was the 2019 artist-in-residence at NYU’s Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies in 2019, a New America fellow in 2020, and the winner of the Bernhardt Labor Journalism Award in 2022. Currently, she is a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, working on a history of the Jewish Labor Bund.

Monique Maddy is a multicultural entrepreneur, author, and innovator devoted to improving the everyday lives of people across Africa. In her 30-year career, she has held senior positions at Google and Apple and launched her own entrepreneurial ventures to amplify African voices and influence on the global stage. At Apple, she successfully developed and executed the company’s Apple Pay strategy in Latin America and subsequently its payments strategy for Apple media products (App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, iCloud) in Latin America and Africa. She also founded a disruptive digital wallet platform that was incubated by Google and rolled out in Mexico, and she brought mobile cellular service to Africa. Through Unite in Africa and Out of Omo, Monique is partnering with industry leaders inside and outside Africa to identify, invest in, and promote the countless business opportunities in the media and fintech sectors. She is also the published author of Learning to Love Africa: My Journey from Africa to Harvard Business School and Back (HarperCollins, 2004), drawing on her personal experiences in Africa and her MBA at Harvard Business School. Her articles have been published in TechCrunch and Harvard Business Review.

Nastya Horpinchenko has been a member of the team of the Ukrainian investigative agency Slidstvo.Info since September 2022. She specializes in covering the Russian-Ukrainian war, shooting and making reports from the frontline and de-occupied territories. She has also been an author of the blog about the war in Ukraine for the Franco-German TV channel ARTE for over a year.

In 2020-2021, she traveled to Donetsk and Luhansk regions as part of international and national monitoring missions organized by the "Vostok SOS" charitable foundation, which specializes in helping victims of the war in Ukraine.

In 2018-2022, she worked as a reporter and host of live broadcasts on Hromadske Radio.

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Natalia Antelava is a Georgian journalist, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning newsroom Coda Story, and co-founding member of ZEG Festival. Coda, a digital newsroom that reports on roots of global crises, has covered many of the themes that are currently shaping the Ukraine war, and during the first weeks of invasion Coda’s narrative journalism, quoted by newsrooms such as the New York Times and CNN, provided important context to the mainstream coverage of the news.Before founding Coda, Natalia was a BBC resident correspondent in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. She has covered Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its first invasion of Ukraine and has reported on conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. Her undercover investigations into human rights abuses in Iraq, Yemen, the United States, and India have won her a number of awards and an Emmy nomination.

Natasha Lomouri is the Director of the Writers House of Georgia since 2011. The Writer's House manages a comprehensive literature programme, a writers’ residency, the Museum of Soviet Repressed Writers and also organizes the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature, next to other local and international literary forums and book fairs. Located in a landmark building in the historic Sololaki district, the Writer's House of Georgia seeks to contribute to Tbilisi's vibrancy and an open and forward-looking culture and education.

Nic Dawes is Executive Director of THE CITY, an nonprofit newsroom that serves the people of New York through investigative reporting that helps them hold the powerful to account, and service journalism that makes it easier to navigate daily life. He was previously deputy executive director of Human Rights Watch, Editor in Chief of the Mail and Guardian in Johannesburg, and Chief Content Officer of Hindustan Times. He serves as board president of Coda Media.

Nick Laparra is a storyteller, educator, and activist. He is the founder of Let’s Give A Damn, a multifaceted organization that helps people live absurdly intentional and ethical lives.

The son of a Guatemalan immigrant, Nick was born in Upstate NY but moved to Guatemala with his parents and 11 siblings when he was a young boy. Since his time in Guatemala, Nick has visited over 30 countries engaging in various kinds of social impact work. At his core, Nick is a passionate storyteller who doesn’t mince words or suggest band-aid fixes for life or death issues.

He lives in New York City with his partner, Rebecca, and their three children, Solace, Belle, and Roman.

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Nicola Dinan grew up in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur and now lives in London. She studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University before training as a lawyer. Bellies, her debut, was shortlisted for the Mo Siewcharran prize.

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Oksana Zabuzhko (b.1960) is Ukraine’s major contemporary writer, the author of more than twenty books of different genres (poetry, fiction, essays, criticism). She made her poetry debut at the age of 12, yet, as her parents had been blacklisted during the Soviet purges of the 1970s, it was not until the perestroika that her first book was published. She graduated from the department of philosophy of Kyiv Shevchenko University, obtained her PhD in philosophy of arts, and has worked as a research associate for the Institute of Philosophy of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In the early 1990s she lectured in the USA as a Fulbright Fellow and a Writer-in-Residence at Penn State University, Harvard University, and University of Pittsburgh. After the publication of her novel Field Work in Ukrainian Sex (1996), which in 2006 was named “the most influential Ukrainian book for the 15 years of independence”, she has been living as a free-lance author.

Ms. Zabuzhko has established herself as the country’s leading public intellectual, and has for years been listed by the media among Ukraine’s top 100 most influential people. Since 2013 she, along with her partner, artist Rostyslav Luzhetsky, have operated a small publishing house promoting quality non-commercial literature.

Zabuzhko’s books have been translated into Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Swedish. Among her numerous acknowledgements are MacArthur Grant (2002), Antonovych International Foundation Prize (2008), the Ukrainian National Award the Order of Princess Olha (2009), Angelus Central European Literary Prize (2013), Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine (2019), and many other national and international awards. Her opus magnum, The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2010), was ranked by the Tages-Anzeiger among 20 Best Novels of the 21^st century, and her recent collection of stories Your Ad Could Go Here (2020) was listed by the New York Times among 100 best books of the year from around the world.

Olivia is a London-based photographer known for her in-depth work examining people and their personal and cultural identities. Her first book, Jeddah Diary, follows the lives of young women in Saudi Arabia. Her second book, Stranger is a journey into Dubai seen through the eyes of the survivor of a shipwreck. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has been included in institutional collections in the UK, USA, Germany and Switzerland. She is co-founder of Fishbar, a publisher and space for photography in London. She became a member of Magnum Photos in 2013 and in 2020 was elected as its President.

Patrick Boehler is a media executive with a track record of digital transformation in newsrooms. He has worked at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, The New York Times, and The South China Morning Post. His areas of expertise include editorial strategy, audience research, product development, and change management. Boehler is known for his audience-centric approach and has implemented award-winning initiatives that have helped organizations achieve lasting impact.

Born and raised in Venezuela, Patrick Walsh studied law and then became a literary agent. In 2000, he co-founded the Conville & Walsh Agency which was sold in 2016 to Curtis Brown. Patrick then founded the PEW Literary Agency, where he represents authors ranging from the No 1 international bestselling author and anti-Putin human rights’ campaigner, Bill Browder, to Sally Hayden, the young foreign correspondent who recently won numerous prizes - the Orwell Prize, the Michel Deon Award, the Irish Book of the Year Prize - with MY FOURTH TIME, WE DROWNED, her explosive investigation into attempts to restrict immigration from Africa, to Andrew North, the ex-BBC war correspondent who is currently completing his devastating account of Afghanistan’s recent history.

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Paul Caruana Galizia became a journalist after his mother was assassinated and has won a British Journalism Award and multiple other honours for his reporting. He is currently a finalist for the Orwell Prize. With his brothers, he has received a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Norman-Lucas Award for campaigning to achieve justice for Daphne.

Paul Rimple has been a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi since 2003. In 2015, he became Tbilisi's Bureau Chief for global food tourism company, Culinary Backstreets, writing exclusively about Georgia’s burgeoning food and wine scene, and in 2016 was a guest in Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. Today, Paul runs his own culinary tour company, Meet Me Here Tbilisi.

Pekka Kallioniemi (PhD) is a Finnish expert on social media and disinformation. He works as an independent consultant and as postdoctoral researcher on human-technology interaction at Tampere University. Besides researching state-of-the-art technologies, he's also studied Russian online information operations and disinformation. In his current work, he combines these topics, studying how online information operations and disinformation may change in the future with the adoption of technologies such as ChatGPT, deep fakes, and generative AI. Kallioniemi has been publishing the popular "vatnik soup" series on Twitter since October 2022 and has been a regular commentator on national and international media. Since January 2023, he’s worked as a columnist for the British newspaper Byline Times, and his work has been covered in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Die Welt.

Was born in Athens, Greece. Working as a photojournalist, Papamichael moved to NYC, where he began to cross over into directing, screenwriting and cinematography. Following a call from John Cassavetes, Phedon moved to Los Angeles, where he began his feature career as a Director of Photography for Roger Corman.

He now counts over fifty feature films to his credit as Director of Photography, many critically acclaimed films with 5 nominated for Best Picture Academy Award. Unstrung Heroes (dir: Diane Keaton), The Million Dollar Hotel (dir: Wim Wenders), Walk the Line (dir: James Mangold), Pursuit Of Happyness, The Ides of March (dir: George Clooney), Sideways, The Descendants and Nebraska (dir: Alexander Payne) for which Phedon received an Academy Award, BAFTA and ASC Nomination and won the BSC Award.

Ford vs. Ferrari was honoured with 4 Academy Award Nominations and garnered another BAFTA and ASC nom for Phedon. His most recent feature, The Trial of The Chicago 7, was honored with 6 Academy Award Nominations, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography. Phedon recently completed production on Indiana Jones 5, staring Harrison Ford.

Phedon’s directorial debut The Sketch Artist (1991), staring Sean Young and Drew Barrymore, won the Silver Award for Feature Film at the Houston International Film Festival, followed by Dark Side of Genius. The award-winning psychological horror From Within premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.  Phedon continued with Arcadia Lost, starring Nick Nolte, Lost Angeles (2012) and the short film A Beautiful Day, which screened at over 30 film festivals around the world garnering multiple international awards.

His latest directorial endeavour is the social-political thriller/drama Light Falls, which was shot in Greece (2020) and is a Georgian-Greek-Albanian-German Co-production

A Glasgow-native turned global storyteller, Quentin Sommerville has built a career reporting on the world's most dangerous hotspots. His early days as a Shanghai and Beijing correspondent honed his skills for navigating across cultures, while his three-year stint as the BBC’s Afghanistan correspondent brought him face-to-face with the human cost of conflict. Now based in Beirut, Sommerville covers the Middle East, from the ongoing conflicts in Libya and Syria to further afield in Eastern Ukraine. Through his insightful reporting, he gives a voice to those living in the midst of turmoil, offering viewers a glimpse into the dark reality of war.

Rahmina Paullete is a young climate activist, environmentalist, and wildlifeconservationist from Kenya. She is the head campaigner for#LetLakeVictoriaBreatheAgain which advocates for the restoration of LakeVictoria. She is the founder of Kisumu Environmental Champions. Morever, she is among the lead activists from Fridays for the future, a youthchampion for Fossil Fuel Treaty, an ambassador for Climate Clock,Sustainable Food System advocate at Food At Cop, and a climate changechampion at Wangari Maathai Foundation. Furthermore, she is a boardmember at Sustory Love and 2022 Initiative.

She also has her own foundation by the name Rahmina PaulleteFoundation that donates clothing materials, food, trees, and even materialsfor charity. Her eco-friendly business called RahminaPauletteEcoProductsis centered on making water hyacinth products such as cards, bags,furniture, table coasters, furniture, and other customized products. This

promotes the blue economy, enhances youth and women empowerment,and conserves the environment.

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