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 to promote affordable, equitable education. At MasterClass, Rasmussen was both Creative Director and CTO, creating courses taught by notable experts and directing many himself.

He previously founded and sold an industrial robotics company and a beverage company. The video game he co-wrote, BlindSide, has won multiple awards and is being adapted into a film. He speaks and writes on education, innovation, art, and the intersection of all with artificial intelligence.

Abaas Mpindi is the CEO of the Media Challenge Initiative (MCI), a Ugandan based organisation building the next generation of journalists in Uganda. Mpindi believes that good journalism can make the world a better place through the stories journalists tell and how they tell them. Under MCI, Mpindi oversees the MCI Media Hub, MCI Radio and Solutions Now Africa, platforms that are amplifying media innovations and using solutions journalism to challenge negative narratives about Africa. Mpindi's story has been published in the Huffington post, CNN African Voices and in 2018 his work was put on spotlight by President Barack Obama in his #Mandela 100 lecture in South Africa. Mpindi is a 2024 Elevate Prize Winner,  2023 Africa Visionary Fellow, 2018 Obama Leader, 2018 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur and a Young Emerging Leaders Program Fellow.

Adam Faze is the co-founder and CEO of Gymnasium, the digital television studio behind viral short form shows like Boy Room, Left On Read, and Roommate Court, which have been viewed half billion times on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube and profiled in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Interview Mag, and more. Prior to starting Gymnasium, Adam spent nearly a decade working in traditional Hollywood both running his own production companies and as a producer at Annapurna Pictures (Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle). In 2024, The Hollywood Reporter named him one of the 50 Most Influential Influencers.

Adam Pincus is an award-winning entertainment executive and producer whose career has spanned television, film and digital media.

He is currently founder and CEO of Best Case Studios, a production company that produced documentaries and narrative podcasts, including Fallen Angels: A Story of California Corruption based on reporting by three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Paul Pringle.

Previosuly, he was Executive Vice President and head of content for First Look Media, best known for the Academy Award winning film Spotlight. He won an Emmy award there as executive producer of the documentary16 Shots, directed by Richard Rowley.

Pincus began his career as a working musician in New York City, before taking a role in digital media at Viacom Interactive Services, where he produced the first website for the Sundance Film Festival. He then moved to Sundance Channel, where he served in various roles and was executive producer of the long-running series Iconoclasts.

Following Sundance Channel, he founded the production company Hour One and executive produced the Peabody Award winning documentary series Nimrod Nation, directed by Brett Morgen. He then moved to WPP where he ran the content division for MediaCom, and then ran the North American content business for GroupM Entertainment.

He is a long-time Adjunct at New York University Stern School of Business where he teaches Business of Film, and previously taught at NYU’s Tisch School of The Arts. He has written about film and digital media for various publications, and was a Contributing Editor to FILMMAKER Magazine.

Adelin Petrișor is one of Romania’s most renowned war correspondents, with nearly three decades of experience in the field. He has reported from numerous conflict zones, including Serbia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Airaj (Reg) Jilani spent his career in the oil and gas industry. He began as a field piping engineer and worked his way up to become the Project Director of a major oil and gas contractor in Houston, Texas. His work on multi-billion-dollar projects took him across the U.S. and around the world, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and other countries.

Alejandro Aravena graduated as an architect from Universidad Católica de Chile in 1992. Between 2000 and 2005 he was a professor at Harvard University, where he founded Elemental, a "Do Tank" founded in 2001. Elemental is led by Alejandro Aravena along with partners Gonzalo Arteaga, Juan Cerda, Victor Oddó, and Diego Torres.

In 2010 he was named Honorary International Fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects. Since 2011, he has been a member of the Council of the Cities Program of the London School of Economics. In 2014, he gave a TED Global Talk. Aravena's and Elemental's works have been recognized by awards including the Silver Lion at Venice Biennale (2008) and the Gothenburg Award for Sustainability (2017). In 2016, Aravena was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize and was the Curator of the XV Venice Biennale. Since 2020, he has been the President of the Pritzker Prize Jury.

Alexandre Amirejibi is a machine learning engineer and researcher at the Tbilisi Information Collective. His work focuses on modeling the behavior of information actors in cyberspace and exploring how digital platforms can be better aligned with human needs and values.
His ongoing projects involve computationally modeling the coverage bias of news organizations and work on TIC's news aggregator Nakadi.News. Currently, he is pursuing an MSc in Artificial Intelligence at Utrecht University.

Alexandre Kordzaia, known professionally as Kordz, is a Georgian electronic music producer, composer, and performer born in Tbilisi in 1994. Raised between Georgia and Switzerland in a musical family, he developed an early passion for both classical and contemporary music. Kordz's music blends classical influences—such as Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky—with electronic and funk icons like Prince, James Brown, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. His work spans genres including downtempo, ambient, and experimental electronic music, often incorporating orchestral elements. His signature piano sounds— minimalist yet emotionally resonant—serve as the backbone of his compositions, weaving intricate melodies that bridge the gap between analog warmth and digital precision. With over 3.8 million total streams as of April 2025 , Kordz continues to shape Georgia's electronic and classical music scenes, offering a distinctive sound that defies traditional genre boundaries. For those interested in exploring modern Georgian music, Kordz offers a compelling entry point into the country's vibrant electronic and experimental scenes.

Alix Dunn is a trusted expert, advisor, and facilitator who has shaped the field of public interest technology and worked on the issues of society and technology for 15 years.
She is the founder and CEO of The Maybe, a critical consultancy, collective, and media studio that challenges the power and politics of technology. She also hosts the Computer Says Maybe podcast.
Alix serves as a senior advisor for AI Now and the AI Collaborative, and sits on the advisory boards of Foxglove and RealML. She is a former trustee of the Ada Lovelace Institute for AI & Society and program committee member of the board of directors of the Mozilla Foundation. Before setting up The Maybe, Alix co-founded The Engine Room, a global non-profit that supports activist organizations in incorporating technology into their work.

Ana Prieto is a journalist and author from Argentina who specializes in mental health, extremism, and disinformation. She serves as a consultant for the Spanish chapter of the International Journalists’ Network, a project of the International Center for Journalists. Ana spent five years at Agence France-Presse (AFP) as an editor and trainer in digital investigation techniques and fact-checking. Since 2023, she has been leading media literacy workshops for vulnerable communities in Buenos Aires.

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Andres Ilves spent over 20 years with the BBC and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, where he was responsible for coverage in local languages in places from Africa to Afghanistan to the Caucasus to Central Asia. He has also worked in numerous other sectors, from the NGO field in the Balkans to local government and politics in California. Starting with his native Estonian, Andres has added on numerous other languages, from the major European ones to Swahili, Dari, Pashto, and Zulu. He graduated with a degree in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in the US; in his free time he writes fiction and listens to hip hop.

Andrés Juan Guerrero Rubiano was severely injured on September 26, 2019, at the Universidad Distrital of Colombia, when Colombian Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) police decided to shoot him directly in the eyes. He is now finishing his undergraduate degree in social sciences. An avid footballer, he was forced to stop playing due his eye trauma. He is also passionate about motorcycles and teaching.

Ane Breivik is the former president of the Young Liberals of Norway and a current candidate in the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary elections. She was elected as a deputy member of the Norwegian Parliament at 23 and has represented the Liberal Party on the Finance Committee.
An active participant in Norwegian public debate, Ane regularly writes book reviews for the political newspaper Altinget and has contributed essays to Vårt Land. She currently resides in Istanbul, where she is completing her MA in Law through an Erasmus exchange at Koç University.
Ane wrote her thesis on EU/EEA law at the University of Bergen and is affiliated with the think tank Langsikt.

Anka Koiava is a designer and co-founder of RECKLESS, a purpose-driven streetwear brand that uses fashion as a platform for protest and cultural commentary. With a multidisciplinary background in graphic, interior, and clothing design, she approaches every project with a focus on creative problem-solving.
At ZEG Fest, Anka represents RECKLESS in amplifying Gen Z voices and driving conversations around identity, gender roles, and collective responsibility. Her work blends cultural awareness with visual disruption, transforming garments into bold, wearable statements.

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Anna Fifield is a New Zealand journalist focused on Asia. She is the Asia-Pacific editor at the Washington Post and spent 20 years abroad as a foreign correspondent for the Post and the Financial Times, with postings in Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. She is the author of The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un. Anna won Stanford University's Shorenstein Journalism Award for Asia coverage in 2018 and was a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University in 2013-2014.

Anna Reismann currently represents the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Uganda and South Sudan. Previously she was based in Brussels and Ukraine and worked as political advisor on Andean countries and Central America at the headquarters of the foundation.

Anne Avis is a board member of Internews, Montana Free Press, and Tinworks Art in Bozeman, Montana. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards and previously co-chaired the boards of KQED and Internews. Anne lives in Clyde Park, Montana, with her husband, Greg. They have three grown children. Raised in Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Williams College and an alumna of the National Outdoor Leadership School.

Anya Schiffrin is the director of the Technology, Media, and Communications specialization at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a senior lecturer who teaches on global media, innovation and human rights.  She writes on journalism and development, investigative reporting in the global south and has published extensively over the last decade on the media in Africa. More recently she has become focused on solutions to the problem of online disinformation, earning her PhD (with honors) on the topic from the University of Navarra. She is the editor of Women in the Digital World, (Routledge, April 2023) Global Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Reporting from Around the World (New Press, 2014) and African Muckraking: 75 years of Investigative journalism from Africa (Jakana 2017) She is the editor of Media Capture: How Money, Digital Platforms and Governments Control the News (Columbia University Press 2021.) Dr. Schiffrin's work with economist Haaris Mateen on the valuation of news has been cited in the Atlantic, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post and many other publications. She is a leading thinker and commentator on AI and publishing, media sustainability as well as mis/disinformation and media impact.

Armando Iannucci is a writer, director, and broadcaster whose critically acclaimed work spans television, film, radio, and stage. In 2005, Iannucci created the BBC series 'The Thick of It'. The show received widespread recognition, earning 13 BAFTA nominations and 5 wins. The success of the series also led to the 2009 film 'In the Loop', which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Armando then went on to create the HBO series ‘Veep’. The show explored the American political system through the character of Selina Meyer, winning several prestigious awards, including four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series.

In 2017 he published 'Hear Me Out', a new book on classical music and released the feature film ‘The Death of Stalin’ which received 2 BAFTA nominations and won Best Comedy at the European Film Awards. In 2019, he directed ‘The Personal History of David Copperfield’, which won Best Screenplay at both the WGBA and BIFA, while also earning a Golden Globe nomination.

Iannucci returned to HBO with ‘Avenue 5’, a sci-fi comedy about a luxury space cruise ship that goes off course, starring Hugh Laurie. The series was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Emmy.

In 2024, Iannucci adapted Stanley Kubrick's ‘Dr. Strangelove’ for the stage, reimagining the film as a live theatrical production. The stage version received acclaim for its bold take on Kubrick’s political satire and marked Iannucci’s return to working with Steve Coogan, with whom he created the character, Alan Partridge.

Arwa Damon is a five-time Emmy winning former CNN Senior International Correspondent. While her career has taken her across the globe, she is best known for her coverage of the Middle East, especially out of Iraq and Syria, and for the human stories she brings into her reporting. She is also the recipient of numerous Peabody Awards, the Investigative Reporters and Editors award for her coverage of the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, and the prestigious “Courage in Journalism” award by the International Women’s Media Foundations. In 2015 Arwa founded her charity, the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance, INARA, that provides comprehensive holistic medical and mental health care for children impacted by war and natural disasters who otherwise would not be receiving treatment. In 2022 Arwa parted ways with CNN to direct and produce the award-winning documentary “Seize the Summit” and focus on growing and expanding INARA. She is also a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.

Becky Lipscombe is Coda Story’s senior audio producer and oversaw Coda’s two documentary series for Audible: Captured and Undercurrents. Before joining Coda Story, Becky spent 20 years as a foreign news producer for the BBC, covering everything from conflicts and coups in Africa and the Middle East to tsunamis and terrorism in Asia. While based in Africa, she produced the award-winning series Blood Lands for BBC Radio, and BBC News’ first virtual reality documentary films: Damming the Nile and Congo VR.

Branko Brkic is founder of PROJECT KONTINUUM, a global initiative to advance journalism, media innovation, and sustainability.  He is former Editor-in-Chief of Daily Maverick, South Africa’s leading online daily which he co-founded in 2009.  Branko’s career spans 40 years and includes a book publishing house in Yugoslavia, editing a business and tech magazine in South Africa and launching Maverick and Empire magazines.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC is a human rights lawyer, a Commissioner at the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, and an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin. She is a leading expert on journalists’ safety and arbitrary detention.
Caoilfhionn has secured the release of numerous wrongly detained journalists and activists. She leads the international legal teams representing Maria Ressa in the Philippines, Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, and the family of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta.

Cesar Kuriyama, the visionary behind 1 Second Everyday, began his career as a director and VFX artist, crafting visual narratives that captivated audiences. His personal endeavor to capture the essence of daily life by recording a second of video every day—a practice he's faithfully maintained for over 12 years—was introduced to a global audience through his TED Talk in 2012 with over 2 million views. This sparked widespread interest and led to the creation of the 1SE app, empowering others to embrace a similar journey. Today, under Cesar's guidance, the 1SE team, comprised of 16 dedicated humans from around the world, passionately develops tools that enable individuals to chronicle and deeply connect with their own stories and experiences.

Born in Peru and raised in the United States as a math and science nerd, Cesar's love for storytelling eventually led him to study multiple artistic disciplines at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Before launching 1SE, he worked in the advertising world with notable clients like BMW, Verizon, and the NFL. His personally produced work has garnered millions of views and been featured in Fast Company, Wired, CNN, and The New York Times. He has also taught courses at NYU and Pratt Institute.

Imagine a movie that includes every day of the rest of your life.

Christoph Plate is the Director of the Media Programme for South East Europe at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Previously, he held the same position for Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the 1990s, Christoph worked as a contributing Africa correspondent for Der Spiegel, reporting on the war in Somalia and the genocide in Rwanda. He later joined the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, where he spent a decade covering the Middle East as the Sunday edition editor and reporter. Christoph also served as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Schwäbische Zeitung in southwestern Germany.

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 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.

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.

Clém Pouré is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. They are a freelance journalist based in Paris, covering the intersection of technology and social issues.
They have focused their reporting on surveillance in public spaces, publishing dozens of stories in the French investigative outlet Mediapart and other news media.
Deepening their work on public liberties, Clém has recently shifted their focus to the workplace, examining the impact of AI-powered algorithmic surveillance on workers’ daily lives.

Dan Klein has taught Improvisation at Stanford University for 20 years. He is an Advanced Lecturer in the Theater Department and Lecturer of Management in the Graduate School of Business, a Core Communications Lecturer for the Knight-Hennessey Scholars and Instructor at the d.school. He teaches Creativity, Collaboration and Connection at for organizations around the world including Google, Meta, Youtube, Netflix, Visa and TBC Bank in Tbilisi.

Dani Tabukashvili is a political scientist and cultural studies scholar. The focus of her research is on collective memory, places of remembrance, and historical memory formation in Georgia. She works at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and coordinates projects in the fields of political education and social development. As a native of Tbilisi, she has always been fascinated by the urban legends and stories of her city. She witnessed the dramatic events in Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which profoundly changed the country's culture and identity. In her free time, she works as a tour guide and enjoys sharing these stories with others.

Davide Monteleone is a visual artist, researcher, and National Geographic Fellow whose work spans photography, visual journalism, writing, and interdisciplinary projects. His practice explores complex themes, including geopolitics, geography, identity, data, and science. Originally from Italy, Monteleone spent over a decade in Russia between 2000 and 2021, where he developed his early series and published four acclaimed monographs: Dusha (2007), Red Thistle (2012), Spasibo (2013), and The April Theses (2017).

Monteleone’s work has been featured in prominent publications such as National Geographic, Time, and The New Yorker and exhibited in renowned venues, including the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. His 2022 project Sinomocene, a data-driven investigation into China’s economic expansion, materialised as both an exhibition and a book, furthering his commitment to narratives that merge visual storytelling with investigative research.

In 2024, he completed Critical Minerals—Geography of Energy, an exploration into the geopolitical and environmental stakes of energy transition resources, which continues his examination of climate and economic impacts on a global scale.
Among Monteleone’s numerous accolades are the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (2024), the Deloitte Photo Grant (2024), the National Geographic Fellowship (2019), the Asia Society Fellowship (2016), and the Carmignac Photojournalism Award (2013). He holds a Master’s in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is actively engaged as a curator and educator across various public and private institutions.

Dessi Damianova, Chief Operating Officer of Bellingcat, leads organizational development, fundraising, and finance. Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators, and citizen journalists brought together by a passion for open-source research. Damianova has over 25 years of experience as a journalist, editor, and C-suite executive in the non-profit media development sector. She previously set up large investigative journalism programs in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, working at many prominent newsrooms and media organizations, including BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, Reuters, Press Now, Free Voice, and Free Press Unlimited.

Emily Goligoski researches media consumers to help organizations boost their revenue. She has held management roles at The Atlantic, the future-of-work media company Charter, and the Membership Puzzle Project, a public-interest research initiative at NYU. She was the first user experience researcher embedded at The New York Times. She is also a writer.

Emily has focused her career on ensuring the sustainability of independent journalism, particularly in contexts where its viability is under threat. She is an adjunct professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she teaches about the business of media.

At Stanford, Emily earned her master’s degree in Learning, Design & Technology and taught at the Stanford design institute (d.school), among other institutions. She reported for Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ) while studying journalism at Northwestern.

Ed Caesar is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of two books, most recently The Moth and the Mountain, which tells the story of a solo attempt to climb Everest in 1934, and was named a Times and Sunday Times book of the year, among other awards. As a journalist, he has covered war, organised crime, financial crime, and some more enjoyable things, like DJs, tennis matches, and the world's largest diamond. Kevin Costner once asked him if he was "anxious to die". He is not.

Elise Tillet is the Campaigns and Media Lead for Luminate in Europe where she works to mobilise the public and grow a large and inclusive movement demanding that Big Tech respect human rights and social justice. Previously she worked as a human researcher and advocate in Europe and Asia, focusing on crimes against humanity and human rights abuses.

Emma Lacey-Bordeaux is a seasoned journalist, speaker and teacher. She serves as Senior Director for Standards and Practices at CNN and teaches ethics at Georgetown University. In her career Emma has distinguished herself with enterprise reporting and strong leadership. Her work has garnered multiple awards including an Emmy and multiple Peabodys. In 2018 she produced a groundbreaking documentary, The Feminist on Cellblock Y,  that continues to be taught in colleges, high schools and middle schools across the United States.

Since 2017 she has called Washington DC, home but she hails from Atlanta, Georgia and has family roots in Texas, Michigan and New York. She lives with her husband, two cats and a dog. She loves biking, hiking, yoga, visiting DC’s many museums and hosting elaborate dinner parties.

Erzsébet Barát has been the Recurring Visiting Professor in the Department of Gender Studies, CEU since September 2000. She acted as Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of Szeged, Hungary until her retirement in May 2023. She earned her PhD in Linguistics from the Social Sciences Faculty, Lancaster University, UK in 2000. Her research interests include feminist critical theory, queer and transfeminism, relational models of identity, and the relationship between language, power and ideology, with a focus on hate speech and anti-gender politics.

Between 2011 – 2024, she acted as Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian open access journal, TNTeF: Interdisciplinary e-Journal of Gender Studies; the only academic journal of feminist scholarship in the country. She launched and organized the annual gender studies conference in Hungary at University of Szeged from 2005 to 2021 and acted as founding director of the specialization of ‘Gender through Literatures and Cultures in English’ of the MA in English Studies (2009-2023). She has been invited to run courses in MA and PhD programs across Europe, most recently in 2023 at the University of Sundsvall, Sweden and in 2025 at the Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland. She has been awarded the Käthe Leichter Guest Professorship in Gender Studies, Universität Wien, Austria in 2013 and 2023. She regularly participate in international research projects; most recently in “Bodies in Transit: Genders, Mobilities, and Interdependencies” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitivity (2018-2022), and the COST Action Project, “Decolonising Development” (CA 19129)  (2020-2024).

Her academic performance has been acknowledged by Nobilia, the Gender Studies Award, by the Gender Studies Forum, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall in November 2022, and her perseverance as a scholar by the UNESCO Chair Jubilee Medal by Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw for "relentless research activism in support of gender studies and women's and minority rights" in March 2024. She is a regular contributor to edited volumes and journals in English and Hungarian – both abroad and in Hungary.

Fabiola Torres is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. She is the director of the Peruvian digital health vertical Salud con lupa. An award-winning investigative journalist with 20 years of experience, Fabiola specializes in public health, inequalities, and gender. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and has contributed to three of the largest collaborative journalism projects in history: the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and Implant Files.

In 2021, Stanford University's Big Local News program supported her project “El Otro Perú,” which documented the pandemic's impact on Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon. From 2020 to 2023, she served as a professor in the Master’s in Science Journalism program at Universidad Javeriana in Colombia. Currently, Fabiola is pursuing a master's degree in creative writing at PUCP.

Federico Acosta Rainis is a data specialist at the Pulitzer Center. Previously an IT consultant, he transitioned into journalism a decade ago, working with La Nación in Argentina, where he has contributed to award-winning projects. Federico received a Chevening Scholarship and was a Google News Initiative Fellow at The Guardian. At the Pulitzer Center, he helps fellows navigate the data side of their investigations—whether that means digging into geospatial analysis, building scrapers, working with satellite imagery, or designing creative methods to crack tough reporting challenges. He also leads training sessions and collaborates on strategies to bring data and storytelling together.

Francesca D'Annunzio is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. She is the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration reporter at The Texas Observer, a progressive nonprofit news outlet and print magazine.
Francesca has reported on a variety of topics, including lithium mining, housing and zoning, civilian vigilante groups, Christian nationalism, and misinformation.
Her work has been published or syndicated in The Guardian US, USA Today, The Dallas Morning News, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, Religion News Service, the Global Investigative Journalism Network, The Texas Standard, and other outlets.
Francesca’s AI Accountability Fellowship project focuses on surveillance in the borderlands and beyond.

Garry Pierre-Pierre, a Pulitzer Prize-winning multimedia journalist, is a leading voice on Haiti, the Haitian diaspora and community media. He founded The Haitian Times, which provides quality, nuanced information about Haiti and its diaspora.  He was also a Sulzberger Executive Leadership fellow at Columbia University, where he explored ways to serve the Haitian diaspora worldwide.
A former reporter at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize, he is a recognized leader in media entrepreneurship circles. He is the co-founder and first executive director of the Center for Community Media at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. In 2011, Gary was elected president of the New York Press Association, the first person of color to serve in that role.

Gary’s works include 30 Seconds: The Quake that Destroyed Haiti, a book of photography about Haiti’s 2010 earthquake. His contributions have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Miami Herald, Essence, The Griot and The Root among others. He is a fixture on major TV and cable networks, often called upon to provide context and nuance about Haiti.

Illustrator George Butler reports on the ground from conflict zones, climate hotspots and humanitarian crises, using pen, ink and watercolours to highlight personal stories of resilience. By slowing down and going deeper than the headlines, his humanistic approach is shifting how we think about the news. He has written and illustrated two books on Migration and Ukraine. His work has been published by the BBC, The Guardian, NYT,  and is held in V&A Museum collection.

He is a TEDx speaker and TED Fellow and his drawings for VQR magazine won Best Illustrated story at the ASME Awards in the USA in 2023.  In 2014 he won the V&A Illustration Award and the Breakaway Award at the International Media Awards presented by Don McCullin.  And in 2023 he was shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award.

George is a co-founder of Action Syria, a NGO he started to support doctors and teacher salaries in Syria, which has raised £9million.

Ghaith Abdulahad is an award-winning Iraqi author and journalist, born and raised in Baghdad. He studied architecture at the University of Baghdad before turning to journalism in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion. Since then, Abdulahad has reported extensively for The Guardian, covering major conflicts across the Middle East and beyond—including Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Iraq. His work has earned numerous awards, including the Orwell Prize for Journalism, the British Press Award, and two Emmys, among others. In 2023, he published his critically acclaimed debut book, A Stranger in Your Own City—an unflinching account of the catastrophic aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the years of civil war that followed.

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 version of ‘The Voice’ and won the competition at the age of 13. 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. A few months later, Giorgi won Third Prize and the Audience Prize at the Sixty-Second Busoni Competition. In 2021, he received the Hortense Anda- Bührle Special Prize at the Fifteenth Géza Anda Piano Competition in Zurich, which 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.

Giorgi Kandelaki is the project manager at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory (SovLab), a leading Georgian think tank focused on investigating the legacy of Soviet totalitarianism in Georgia and countering its manipulation through Russian disinformation. He served as a member of the Georgian Parliament from 2008 to 2020, where he worked to expose and challenge Russian policies toward Georgia on the international stage.
A vocal critic of ambivalence toward the Soviet past, Kandelaki has advocated for a deeper re-examination of Georgia’s democratic and European heritage, particularly during the period of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918 to 1921), and for incorporating historical memory into broader Western counter-disinformation strategies.
In 2010, through his initiative, the Georgian Parliament designated February 25th as the Day of Soviet Occupation. In 2012, he helped launch a project to transform the Stalin Museum in Gori into the Museum of Stalinism, a plan that was halted in 2013 by the Georgian Dream government. He also introduced legislation in 2018 to open Soviet-era archives, which was later rejected by the ruling party.
Kandelaki frequently publishes on the contemporary impact of the Soviet legacy and is a regular commentator in both Georgian and international media. Most recently, he appeared in the Netflix documentary series The Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War. He also co-edited Georgia vs Joseph Stalin, a collaborative popular history book published by SovLab and acclaimed Georgian writer Lasha Bugadze.

Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist and storyteller from Georgia. He has covered Georgia and former Soviet Union for 20 years. One of the most prominent voices from the Caucasus, Giorgi makes it his job to explain this complex region to the rest of the world.

Giovanny García Garrido is a  researcher focusing on information systems and an urban music artist. He is the victim of the eye trauma perpetuated by the Colombian Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) during the Colombian national strike and social uprising of 2021.

Hans Gutbrod writes on the Caucasus, ethics, and commemoration, and works as a consultant in policy research. Together with colleagues, Hans led a high-impact campaign to increase the transparency of research funding, Transparify. He previously was the regional director of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC). Hans has been working in the Caucasus region since 1999 and currently is a professor at Ilia State University. His recent book "Ethics of Political Commemoration: Towards a New Paradigm" (with David Wood, 2023) proposes that the just war tradition can help to order public debates on remembrance.

Hugh Macleod is the Communications Lead for the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), the world’s leading network of legal and health professionals providing rehabilitation to survivors of torture and other ill-treatment, and advocating for justice.
Before studying human rights law and qualifying as a barrister at the English Bar, Hugh spent a decade working as a journalist in the Middle East, reporting for The Guardian and The Sunday Times, among others. His documentary films have been broadcast internationally, including by Al Jazeera International, ARTE, and PBS.

Hugo Gonzalez is a Director of Public Outreach at the Success Stories Program, an organization he helped build while incarcerated. As an Independent Forensic Gang Expert, Hugo draws from his lived experience and years of professional training to support individuals transitioning out of gang lifestyles and into community-based healing and accountability. He has facilitated transformative workshops across California’s carceral system. Hugo’s work has been recognized by local government, the White House, and featured in national media, including CNN’s The Feminist on Cell Block Y and PBS’s Roadtrip Nation: Being Free.

Irma Dimitradze is a Communications Manager and journalist at Gazeti Batumelebi LLC, an independent Georgian media organization that operates online outlets batumelebi.ge and netgazeti.ge. She recently investigated and exposed the abuse of personal data — including special category data — affecting tens of thousands of voters by Georgia's ruling party ahead of the October 2024 elections. Dimitradze has a particular interest in China-Georgia relations and is actively engaged in independent media advocacy programs. She is also a member of the International Press Institute (IPI), a Vienna-based global network of editors, media executives, and leading journalists.

Isobel Cockerell is a senior reporter with Coda Story. She joined Coda in 2018 after graduating from Columbia Journalism School. She writes about historical reckonings, dystopia, surveillance, conspiracies and climate. She was nominated for the 2023 Orwell prize and was the winner of the 2020 European Press Prize.

JP Saxe is a Toronto-born, L.A.-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for his honesty and straightforward approach to songwriting. His music blends a variety of styles, including bedroom pop, piano ballads, soul, and R&B, with lyrics that feel personal yet relatable. It has earned him over 3 billion streams and a devoted following, including a successful headlining tour and an opening slot for John Mayer in 2024.

Saxe's breakthrough came with the 2019 song “If the World Was Ending,” a duet with Julia Michaels, which became a defining song of the pandemic. It went 4X Platinum, received a GRAMMY® nomination for Song of the Year in 2021, and earned Saxe the JUNO Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. He followed this success with his debut album Dangerous Levels of Introspection, which featured collaborations with Maren Morris and Mayer.

In 2023, Saxe released A Grey Area, a sophomore album that showcased his growing musical and lyrical depth. In 2025, Saxe will release his most personal project yet, Articulate Excuses (Part 1), the first of a two-part album that marks a new phase in his musical journey.

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.

James Runcie is a writer, filmmaker and literary curator. He is best known for the The Grantchester Mysteries, an English detective series adapted for 11 television series as Grantchester, and shown in over 120 countries. He is also the author of The Great Passion, about the music of Bach, and Tell Me Good Things, a moving memoir about his first wife. He has made films with Umberto Eco, Hilary Mantel, J.G. Ballard, Yasar Kemal and J.K.Rowling. He has also been Head of Literature at London’s South Bank Centre and Commissioning Editor for the Arts at BBC Radio 4.

Jillian Green is Editor-in-Chief of Daily Maverick. She joined the publication as Managing Editor in 2017, stepping into a pivotal role at a defining moment for the newsroom. Under her leadership, Daily Maverick transitioned from a bold startup to a powerhouse of independent journalism, growing its readership and staff by over 250% in just five years.

She played a critical role in keeping the newsroom thriving during South Africa’s most significant state-level investigation, #GuptaLeaks, ensuring that journalists had the support and editorial structure to produce groundbreaking work. She also launched and oversaw Southern Africa’s largest climate crisis journalism unit, Our Burning Planet, solidifying Daily Maverick as a leader in environmental reporting.

Jillian’s tenure has been marked by record-breaking success, with Daily Maverick journalists winning an unprecedented number of local and international awards. Her expertise in newsroom operations, investigative journalism, and editorial strategy has not only strengthened the publication’s impact but also cemented its reputation as a force in global journalism.

In September 2024, Jillian succeeded Daily Maverick’s founder, Branko Brkic, as Editor-in-Chief.

Jo Even Caspi emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1971 and became a psychologist dedicated to education and social change. She founded branches of facilities within the Nationwide School Psychology System and a major health fund.
In 2014, she joined Women Wage Peace (WWP), where she facilitated successful inter-group conversations within Israel. Her work has been fueled by her passion for political justice and her training as a therapist.
Jo Even Caspi coordinated WWP’s first training program focused on personal growth for peace activism and collaboration with Palestinian women. Since October 7, 2023, she has served as a member of WWP’s central committee. In this role, she spearheaded the creation of two art projects: a large-scale wall painting co-created by an Arab junior high school and WWP, and an ongoing wall sculpture crafted jointly by Ultra-Orthodox women and WWP members.
She continues to be a leading figure in the discussion group with Settler women, which she helped found. Jo Even Caspi is also the proud mother of three grown children and grandmother of six.

Jodie Ginsberg is the Chief Executive Officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit organization that supports journalists at risk by documenting threats and attacks on the media, providing advice and assistance, and conducting advocacy.
A journalist by profession, Jodie joined CPJ in 2022 from the media development organization Internews Europe, where she also served as Chief Executive Officer. She began her career at the Reuters news agency, where she held several positions, including Bureau Chief in London.
In 2014, Ginsberg was appointed Chief Executive of the London-based freedom of expression group Index on Censorship, which she led until 2020. An internationally respected advocate for media freedom and freedom of expression, Ginsberg is a regular speaker on journalist safety and access to information.
She holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and a postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism from City, University of London.

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Joe Sabia is a filmmaker and digital artist with an intuitive talent for conceiving viral concepts and formats. He is the creator and interviewing voice of Vogue’s iconic “73 Questions” series, featuring 90 of the world's biggest A-list celebrities like Taylor Swift, Adele, Roger Federer, Bad Bunny, and Jennifer Lawrence. He is also the interviewer of the annual “Billie Eilish, One Year Later” series for Vanity Fair.
In 2024, Joe directed his first feature film, FEDERER: 12 FINAL DAYS, for Amazon Studios, documenting the retirement of Roger Federer from tennis, alongside director Asif Kapadia. He currently serves as a creative director for TEAM8 Studios, leading the development and execution of commercial content for Roger Federer and Ben Shelton.
Joe was the SVP of Creative Development at Condé Nast Entertainment, where he led the creation of digital franchises like Wired’s Autocomplete Interviews, Vanity Fair’s Lie Detector Interviews, Glamour’s You Sang My Song, and GQ’s Actually Me.
In 2011, Joe received a content innovation grant from YouTube to launch a music video channel called CDZA, which involved 150 conservatory-trained musicians, gained 300,000 subscribers in 18 months, and performed alongside Arcade Fire and Lady Gaga during YouTube’s first-ever YouTube Music Awards, collaborating with Spike Jonze.
Joe is an advisor to MasterClass, The Moth, Outlier.org, and Tonebase Piano. He currently runs his own creative strategy agency and production company called Somehow Studios, working with clients like Audible, YouTube, Spotify, American Express, Carnegie Hall, and UNICEF.
Joe is a lifelong classical piano lover and amateur pianist (and a member of the Franz Liszt Society, with his car’s license plate reading “B LISZT”). He considers himself an unofficial cultural ambassador to the country of Georgia, has dual citizenship with the US and Italy, gave a TED Talk, won an international pun championship, and once drove from England to Mongolia in a small Fiat for charity. He splits his time between NYC and Dutchess County, NY. He'll become a dad this summer.

Jon Lee Anderson is an American author and journalist. He began his career in the 1980s reporting on Central America’s civil wars for TIME magazine and other journals.
As a New Yorker staff writer since 1998, he has covered numerous conflicts, including those in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Mali, Liberia, and Central African Republic. He has reported extensively on Latin America as well, with a special focus on Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, and the Amazon. He is a juror of the Swiss-based True Story Award and a board member of the Colombia-based Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for Journalism.

Anderson has profiled a range of international public figures that include Javier Milei, Lula da Silva, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, King Juan Carlos, Hamid Karzai, Jalal Talabani, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Abiy Ahmed and Charles Taylor, the Liberian war criminal. He has been honored with several awards from the Overseas Press Club, Spain’s Liberporess and Reporteros del Mundo prizes, and Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot award for his reporting on Latin America.

Anderson is the author of a biography of the iconic Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. Entitled Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, it was first published in 1997. While researching the book in Bolivia, he discovered the hidden location of Guevara's skeletal remains, after which they were exhumed and returned to Cuba.

Anderson has written several other books, including Guerrillas: Journeys In the Insurgent World; The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan, and The Fall of Baghdad. He is also the co-author of Inside the League and War Zones: Voices from the World’s Killing Grounds with his brother Scott Anderson. His next book, To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban, will be published in August by Penguin Press.

Anderson lives in Dorset, England. He is married and has three children.

Jon Williams is the Executive Director of Rory Peck Trust, a UK based non-profit that works to empower freelance journalists around the world. He is a three-time Emmy award winning editor and storyteller.

As Managing Director of RTÉ News, Jon  led the digital transformation of the Irish public service
broadcaster, leading a team of 350 journalists producing daily news and long form current affairs
content for radio, TV, and digital platforms. He took RTÉ News to market leadership online and on air, championing fact-based journalism and building trust in journalism, doubling RTÉ’s global reporting footprint and establishing it as Ireland’s most trusted news source.
Jon spent seven years as the BBC’s foreign editor, directing coverage of the Arab Spring and the war in Afghanistan. He led more than 200 journalists in more than 30 different countries, winning the International Emmy for News Coverage for the Israel Hezbollah war in Lebanon and an Emmy Award for reporting from Syria before moving to New York to become Managing Editor of ABC News. There, he oversaw global newsgathering for the Walt Disney Company, winning a third Emmy for its coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Jon has served as the BBC’s UK News Editor and relaunched Britain’s most watched news
programme, BBC ONE’s Six o’clock News. He is a board member of the New York based media freedom NGO, the Committee to Protect Journalists where he chairs the board’s Journalists Assistance Committee, and of the UN Refugee Agency’s UK fundraising foundation.

Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is also the co-chair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD, the co-chair of The Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) and the Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute. Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and a former member and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, a think tank on international development based at Columbia University, in 2000. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 2001 and received that university's highest academic rank (University Professor) in 2003. In 2011 Stiglitz was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2024 he was named an Honorary Academician by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

Josh Hersh is a senior editor at the Columbia Journalism Review and the host of the podcast The Kicker. Previously, he was a senior producer and correspondent for Vice News, where he received a News Emmy for an investigation into the finances of nursing homes. He has reported on U.S. policy and global affairs from around the world, including Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt.

Juan Pablo Fonseca Roa is the Director of the Centro Internacional de Investigación sobre la Violencia Ocular (CIIVO). On May 1, 2021, he was shot in Bogotá’s Northern District. Today, he serves as a delegate to the External Advisory Panel for Police Reform in Colombia, contributing to efforts toward police transformation. His work focuses on interdisciplinary and critical studies related to the use of force, police use of less-lethal weapons, and the arms trade. He is a food enthusiast and is currently studying political science.

Julia Watson is a food and travel writer born in London. She began her career in publishing before moving to The Sunday Times and The Observer. She spent four years in Moscow as the first correspondent for the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail, then transferred to Washington, DC, working as a weekly features columnist for the Daily Express and other UK and US outlets.
Back in London, Julia contributed to the food pages of The Mail on Sunday’s YOU Magazine before returning to Washington, DC. For nearly a decade, she was the food writer for United Press International and wrote on style and food for US publications including The Washington Post, Gourmet Magazine, Forbes, and National Interest. She also ran her own food website, eatwashington.com.
Julia is the author of the novels Russian Salad and American Pie. She has compiled children’s poetry collections and contributed to books on house style and food. The German edition of Bruno’s Cookbook, co-authored with novelist Martin Walker, won Gourmand International’s award for World’s Best French Cookbook.

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.

Kathryn Cleary is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. She is an award-winning investigative journalist and communications professional with a passion for health, human rights, and social justice.
Originally from the United States, she holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Rhodes University in South Africa. Kathryn received a Regional Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award for data journalism in 2019, was the overall winner of the 2020 Isu Elihle Awards for child-centered reporting in Africa, and received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Rhodes in 2022.
She has worked in community and nonprofit media, global development, and strategic communications. She is also interested in exploring the nexus between emerging technologies like AI and social impact.

Keiry Movilla Salazar is an environmental engineer and educator. She suffered an ocular trauma in 2018. She now works with children, youth and adults at the Taller Sur Art School in Bogotá, filling the information gap about social and environmental issues. Keiry believes that true transformation is forged by the collective strength of communities driven by resistance and love.

Kellie Hynes is the Country Director for People in Need in Georgia, where she leads programs focused on rural development, food security, and humanitarian aid. With more than 25 years in international relief and development, Kellie has worked across Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, managing emergency response and long-term development programs utilizing opportunities in the green economy, inclusive business models, and fostering innovative public-private partnerships across diverse value chains.

Her career began in Georgia in 2000, supporting Chechen refugees in the Pankisi Gorge, and she’s come full circle—now helping to launch Georgia’s first Food Bank, a collaboration between civil society and the private sector to reduce waste and fight food insecurity.

Ketie Danelia is the co-founder of Takes Film, a Georgian company focused on author-driven fiction and documentary films.
Ketie has worked in the audiovisual industry since 2006 and has helped lead Takes Film to international recognition. She was selected as a Producer on the Move in 2022 and has contributed to a range of high-profile cultural and film industry projects.
Previously, she managed SOFA (School of Film Agents), led cultural initiatives such as Georgia’s Guest of Honor program at the Frankfurt Buchmesse in 2018, and played a key role in international film export and distribution at the Georgian National Film Center.
Her early career included project management at the Rustaveli State Drama Theatre, where she hosted the OUDS/Thelma Holt International tour with Alan Rickman, as well as film festival curation at the Tbilisi International Film Festival.
With a strong international network, Takes Film and Ketie Danelia continue to help shape the future of Georgian cinema, bridging local stories with global audiences and contributing to the ongoing development of the film landscape in the country and beyond.

Khalid Abdalla is a British-Egyptian actor, writer, producer, and filmmaker. He is best known for playing Dodi Fayed in The Crown, and for his roles in Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner, Paul Greengrass’s United 93 and Green Zone, and The Day of the Jackal.
Khalid produced and starred in the critically acclaimed Egyptian feature In the Last Days of the City, directed by Tamer El Said, and appeared in Tala Hadid’s The Narrow Frame of Midnight. He is also featured in Jehane Noujaim’s Oscar-nominated documentary The Square, which chronicles the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Most recently, he performed onstage in Théâtre de Complicité’s Mnemonic at the National Theatre, and his debut play as a writer, Nowhere, sold out to critical acclaim in its inaugural run.
Khalid is a founding member of three influential cultural initiatives in Cairo—Cimatheque, Zero Production, and Mosireen—and has collaborated on projects with contemporary artists including Aura Satz, Brad Butler and Noor Afshan Mirza, Christiaan Bastiaans, Diego Tonus, and Elisa Caldana.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and is widely recognized for his advocacy and campaigning work across the Arab region and internationally.

Kristina Atovska is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker from Skopje, North Macedonia. She earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism in 2011, followed by a master's degree in Diplomacy and International Relations.
Throughout her career, Kristina has reported on major political events in Romania and neighboring countries, covered protests across the Balkans, and worked on several documentary films. She was the only Macedonian journalist reporting from the war in Ukraine.
Kristina’s documentary Siren Lullabies has received 13 international awards. Another film, Life on the Front Line Trenches, also set in Ukraine, was recognized as the the Most Innovative Journalistic Product.
She is the recipient of the 2022 Nikola Mladenov Journalism Award and a special plaque from the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM) for her outstanding contribution to professional journalism, particularly for her reporting from Ukraine.

Levan Ghambashidze is a graudate of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Ilia Chavchavadze Tbilisi State University of Language and Culture. 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.

Levan Kalandarishvili is a Tbilisi-based architect and researcher, and an associate professor at the Visual Arts, Architecture and Design School (VAADS) at the Free University of Tbilisi, where he teaches a course on the history of urban development.

Since graduating from the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1980, he has worked at various design institutes and now works as a freelancer, focusing on both research and conceptual projects. Levan’s research interests include the historical development of vernacular, industrial, and modernist architecture in Georgia. His recent contributions include articles on the Constructivist movement in Georgia and a narrative on the life and work of the prominent Georgian architect Lado Alexi-Meskhishvili.

Liz Gibbons is Executive Editor of the BBC World Service’s Long Form and Investigations Department which produces a range of documentaries and podcasts including Africa Eye and BBC Eye, and also produces short form digital investigations. Liz is a former Deputy Editor of BBC Newsnight and previously ran the BBC’s World News TV channel.

Liza Kajrishvili is a designer and co-founder of RECKLESS, Georgia’s first teenage streetwear brand. Through bold design, storytelling, and visual direction, she explores and helps shape youth culture.
As a designer and creative director, Liza uses visual language to inspire young people and express powerful narratives through style. Her work captures the raw energy of adolescence and reflects the voices of a generation in transition.
With each collection, she challenges conventions and redefines what it means to be young, expressive, and fearless.

Lucinda Bredin is Editor of Bonhams Magazine and Global Director of Communications for Bonhams, the international auction house. Trained at the Courtauld Institute, she has worked as an art curator in London, Milton Keynes and New York, and as an arts journalist on publications such as The Telegraph, The FT, Vogue, The Art Newspaper and The Observer. She was Arts Editor of The Week Magazine for 20 years. She is currently working on a collection of her interviews with museum directors.

Mary Walter-Brown is the founder and CEO of the News Revenue Hub, a mission-driven, nonprofit that’s helped independent digital newsrooms raise more than $130 million in volunteer donations. Formerly the publisher at Voice of San Diego, Mary developed the gold standard for nonprofit news membership programs and is a leading voice for community-centered journalism. Working with more than 100 news outlets around the United States, the News Revenue Hub provides donation management software, hands-on consulting, and one of the industry’s most comprehensive sets of benchmarks and best practices.

Masu is a designer, photographer, and co-owner of RECKLESS, a purpose-driven streetwear brand based in Tbilisi. RECKLESS uses fashion as a tool for protest and storytelling, and Masu shapes its distinctive aesthetic and emotional tone through photography, casting, and creative communication.
With a background in film photography and creative direction, Masu’s personal work centers on Georgian youth and emerging artists. Her shoots are deeply collaborative - from concept development to styling - and are always rooted in a desire to preserve and celebrate the stories of those she photographs.
At ZEG Festival, Masu presents RECKLESS alongside her team, sharing how the brand merges visual culture with resistance. Through RECKLESS, she explores how fashion can document identity, challenge societal norms, and envision a new future for Georgia’s younger generation.

Maksym Eristavi is a Ukrainian-Czech journalist, writer and creative producer. An author of the Russian Colonialism 101 guidebook and self-described 'Russian colonialism storyteller in chief,' he champions global awareness about the Russian colonial legacy. Maksym spent the past 20+ years shaping storytelling and tools that challenge propaganda, amplify marginalised voices, and reframe global conversations. As the founder of trailblazing Volya Hub, he leads a global storytelling effort to empower communities affected by Russian colonialism to reclaim their stories. The hub mixes journalism, education, audience science, and art to challenge imperial narratives. Its flagship campaign, #RussianColonialism, has garnered over 350+ million digital views, reshaping global discourse, setting a new standard for decolonised storytelling and fostering a deeper understanding of imperial legacies.

Marché Arends is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. Based in Cape Town, she is an independent journalist covering systemic inequality in communities of the Global Majority.
Marché’s work has appeared in The Continent, The Africa Report, Semafor Africa, the Mail & Guardian’s Thought Leader, The Daily Maverick, and other outlets.

Marie Lou Papazian is the founding CEO of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies in Yerevan, Armenia — a free-of-charge educational program that puts teens in charge of their own learning. She developed the center’s educational program and oversaw the design and construction of its flagship facility.
Prior to TUMO, Marie Lou led the Education for Development Foundation linking Armenian students to their global peers through online educational activities. Previously, she was lead construction manager on prominent high-rise buildings in New York City.
She  holds a Master’s Degree in Computing in Education from the Teachers College at Columbia University and is a graduate. of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program. In 2019, Marie Lou received the Ordre des Palmes Académiques — a national order bestowed by the French Republic on distinguished academics and figures in the world of culture and education.

Marina Walker Guevara is the executive editor at thePulitzer Center, an organization dedicated to supporting groundbreakingreporting and fostering civic engagement around the world.

Previously, she served as deputy director of theInternational Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), where she led two of the largest journalistic collaborations in history: the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. These projects brought together hundreds of journalists who used advanced technology to uncover stories of public interest hidden within terabytes of leaked financial data.

Marina played a key role in pioneering the model of large-scale media collaboration. She persuaded traditionally competitive reporters to join forces, share resources, and amplify the reach and impact of their work.

Her journalism career began in her native Argentina. Her reporting—covering topics such as environmental degradation caused by multinational corporations and the global offshore economy—has appeared in leading international outlets, including The Washington Post, Miami Herald,Mother Jones, Le Monde, and the BBC.

She has won or shared more than 50 national and international journalism awards, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize forExplanatory Reporting.

In 2018–2019, Marina was a John S. Knight Fellow at StanfordUniversity, where she focused on the use of artificial intelligence in large-scale data-driven investigations. That same year, she received theMissouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism from her almamater, the Missouri School of Journalism.

Marina serves on the board of directors of the GlobalInvestigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and is a co-founder of the LatinAmerican Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP).

Marisa Mazria Katz is an American journalist and radio reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, NPR, and more. She founded the Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism, supporting artists who create work for top media outlets, with pieces winning Pulitzer Prizes, Emmys, and more.
As the founding editor of Creative Time Reports, she published artists’ perspectives on global issues in collaboration with major outlets like The Guardian, The Intercept and Foreign Policy. In 2023, she co-founded the Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting, fostering impactful collaboration between journalists and artists. She currently teaches journalism at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Masho Lomashvili is a freelance journalist and producer based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She covers a range of topics, including disinformation, global conflicts, and the use of new technologies by authoritarian regimes. After spending two years as a researcher at the multi-media outlet Coda Story, she now works with international media organizations including CNN, ITV, and The Guardian.

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 is the founder of The Climate Academy and Head of Philosophy at the European School Brussels II.
The Climate Academy is a transdisciplinary, extracurricular program open to schools worldwide, dedicated to deepening public understanding of the sustainability crisis at a systemic level and empowering young people to drive change. Matthew authored the Academy’s  360° student book, which distills high-level climate science into an accessible narrative drawing on culture, history, and philosophy.
He is the author of Plato Tackles Climate Change (2021), a critical exploration of democracy’s blind spots in addressing the crisis, highlighting education, media, and the law as key leverage points for systemic transformation. His follow-up book, Arendt Tackles Climate Change (2024), is the second installment in the No Common Sense series.
As a public speaker, Matthew has delivered lectures at the University of Cambridge, other leading institutions, the European Commission, and numerous international schools.

Michael Bociurkiw is a seasoned journalist, author, global affairs analyst and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. His career has spanned some of the world’s most pivotal events—from the Chernobyl disaster and Tiananmen Square massacre to conflict zones and humanitarian crises. He has interviewed several global leaders, and provided expert commentary for CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Sky News, CBS News, and Al Jazeera. His opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, CNN Opinion, The Los Angeles Times, and The Globe and Mail.

A two-time TEDx speaker, Michael is a sought-after presenter and moderator, having taken the stage at venues including the British House of Commons, London’s National Portrait Gallery, and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong. He has served as a spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and as global spokesperson for UNICEF. His 2021 book, Digital Pandemic: How Tech Went From Bad to Good, explores the transformative role of technology during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since early 2022, just before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Michael has been based in Ukraine providing on-the-ground reporting and commentary to global audiences.

Michael Rohatyn has worked in many roles in film. He wrote the screenplay for Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Forty Shades of Blue, starring Rip Torn, and has composed numerous scores including Personal Velocity, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Maggie's Plan, and Emmy-nominated Arthur Miller: Writer, all for Rebecca Miller.
He composed the score and songs for Laurie Simmons' semi-puppet musical The Music of Regret, starring Meryl Streep and Adam Guettel.
Drop Dead City, co-directed with Peter Yost, is his first effort directing a documentary. Michael is currently developing a film adaption of Tim Krabbé's classic novel of cycling, The Rider. He lives in New York City with his family.

Michelle Darby has been facilitating stories through directing, acting, singing, and teaching for almost 40 years. She began teaching true, personal narrative storytelling at Stanford University in 2013. Most recently, she curates and coaches stories for WGBH/The World’s “Stories From the Stage” in Boston, MA. Ever since discovering theater in college, Michelle has been passionate about the power of personal stories to transform the teller and the listener.

Nabeelah Shabbir is a British-Pakistani freelance journalist, based in Amsterdam. As Senior Research Associate at the Washington DC-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), Nabeelah collaborates with a small team of women investigating topics such as: disinformation in newsrooms around the world; journalism after the pandemic; and online violence against women journalists. She is co-author of a series of reports at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford about digital-born news media; innovation in news media in the Global South; and the impact of the Panama Papers investigation, three years on. At The Guardian, Nabeelah shared a British Journalism Award with the “Keep it in the Ground” team, which focused its reporting on fossil fuel divestment and climate change, in 2015. She was also a “European Young Journalist” of the year for her writing in Kosovo in 2008.

Nadia is a journalist, critic and pianist. She is managing editor at Coda Story and programme director at ZEG Fest. Her articles, essays and criticism appear in the Financial Times, The New Yorker, and National Geographic among many others. She was editor-in-chief of The Calvert Journal, an award-winning magazine covering contemporary art, culture and society in Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Prior to that, she was Moscow correspondent for The Independent. Her first book, a memoir on music, will be out from WW Norton (US) and Faber & Faber (UK) in 2026.

Natalia Antelava is a co-founder of ZEG Fest and co-founder and editor-in-chief of Coda Story, an award-winning newsroom that covers the roots of global crises. Originally from Tbilisi, Natalia has been a BBC correspondent in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East, Washington DC and India. She has covered the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the wars in Iraq and in Eastern Ukraine and reported undercover from Burma, Yemen and Uzbekistan. Her investigations into human rights abuses in Central Asia, Iraq and the United States have won her a number of awards. In addition to a career in broadcast journalism, she has written for the Guardian, Forbes magazine and the New Yorker. She is currently John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and author specializing in conflict reporting. She is the founder and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab (PIJL), which promotes constructive discussion around complex social issues. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, PIJL co-founded The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies, documenting Russia’s war crimes.
Nataliya’s work appears in The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and other publications.  As a foreign correspondent, she has reported from over 50 countries. She is the author of The Lost Island: Tales From The Occupied Crimea and The Maidan Tahrir. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2023 Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize and the 2024 Reporters Without Borders Award.

Nick Laparra is a storyteller, a consultant, and an activist. He is the founder of a multifaceted social impact company called Let’s Give A Damn and is the host of the Let’s Give A Damn podcast. On the podcast, Nick has conversations with activists, artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and all kinds of leaders—including Matthew McConaughey, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Rainn Wilson, Colman Domingo, ALOK, Katherine Hayhoe, Chelsea Clinton, and hundreds of other damn good humans.

Nick grew up in Guatemala, has spent years engaged in social impact work in dozens of countries, and now lives in New York City with his partner and children.

Nico Schmidt is the 2024 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. He is an investigative reporter based in Berlin. As part of the Investigate Europe journalistic team, he collaborates with colleagues from more than ten EU countries on topics ranging from the climate crisis to artificial intelligence.
His reporting has been published in Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mediapart, Dagens Nyheter, and Gazeta Wyborcza. His work has been shortlisted for the German Reporter Prize and longlisted for the Henri Nannen Prize.
Apart from reporting, Nico has lectured and trained in investigative journalism in Oxford, The Hague, Brussels, and Berlin.
He is currently working on a project about the proliferation of surveillance technologies.

Nicola Careem is Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, one of the world’s largest multilingual news organizations. She leads a team of over 2,000 staff and freelance journalists producing independent journalism in 27 languages across 23 countries, reaching more than 47 million people weekly.

Previously, Nicola served as CNN’s Director of Coverage and was the BBC’s South Asia Bureau Chief, overseeing reporting from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, and beyond. She has led teams covering major conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories.

Nikoloz Bakradze is a Georgian actor. He studied under the mentorship of renowned theatre director Temur Chkheidze and has since performed at prominent Georgian theaters, including the Theatre on Atoneli, the Royal District Theatre, and Theatre Factory 42 in Tbilisi. In 2023, he co-directed and starred in a production of Pitchfork Disney, which earned him the Tsinandali Award and the Independent Prize Tavisupali for Best Actor.

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