Sean Penn won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances in Mystic River and Milk, and received Academy Award nominations as Best Actor for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown, and I Am Sam. He has worked as an actor, writer, producer, and director on over one hundred theater and film productions. His journalism has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, and HuffPo. This is his first novel.

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.

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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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 Editor in Chief of openDemocracy 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.

Anna Reismann is the Country Director for Uganda and South Sudan at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Anna 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 holds a Diploma Degree in Languages, Economics and Cultural Studies from the University of Passau. She speaks German, Russian, English, Spanish and Ukrainian.

Armando Iannucci’s 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 five 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, 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 two BAFTAs and won Best Comedy at the European Film Awards. His latest HBO series, 'Avenue 5', which starred Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad, ran for two series on SKY 2020 and 2022. Armando is currently working on a new comedy for HBO entitled ‘The Franchise’ with Sam Mendes, and will be making his debut as a playwright with ‘Pandemonium’ at London’s Soho Theatre, followed by the highly anticipated stage adaption of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr Strangelove’ which sees Armando reuniting with Steve Coogan in the titular role. The play will open in London’s West End in fall 2024.

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.

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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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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 is Managing Editor of CNN’s multi-award-winning gender inequality reporting team As Equals, and co-founder of The Gender Beat, a collaborative project to promote nuanced, impactful gender journalism and build a supportive community for those who produce it. Before joining CNN in February 2021, she was Managing Editor of The Correspondent, a platform for constructive, member-funded, ad-free journalism. Eliza has spoken about gender, journalism or international development on stages from SXSW to TED Global; has written for The Guardian, Al Jazeera and the FT; and has appeared on Newsnight, BBC World Service, PRI’s The World and Our Body Politic, among others. She is a contributing author to Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century, published by Routledge.

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 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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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 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.

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.

Inga Thordar is the Chief External Relations Officer for the Ocean Born Foundation where she works across all business lines. The foundation tackles climate change by funding initiatives that restore and protect the ocean. Inga is passionate about environmental and social impact and justice and is also a non-executive director for several mission driven companies and charities. She is the former Executive Editor of CNN Digital Worldwide, overseeing all international news, sport and programming teams globally. In her role, she pushed for more and better coverage of the climate crisis and hired the first international climate editor. She is the co-founder of the innovative gender reporting series As Equals. Before CNN, she was a Senior Editor at the BBC bringing together TV and digital production teams and commissioning. Prior to that she was the Front Page Editor for the BBC News website responsible for quality control of all content, daily publication and team management.

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) and served as a director of the State Academy of Arts in Tbilisi in 2012. Popiashvili has curated exhibitions in the US and Europe, including the 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).

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.

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.

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 is a filmmaker and digital artist with an intuitive talent for conceiving viral concepts and formats. Joe 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. Joe directed his first feature film “FEDERER: 12 FINAL DAYS” for Amazon Studios on the retirement of Roger Federer from tennis, alongside director Asif Kapadia. He currently acts as a creative director for TEAM8 Studios, leading the development and execution of content for Roger Federer, Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton. Before Studio Sabia, Joe was the SVP of Creative Development at Condé Nast Entertainment, leading the creation of digital franchises like Wired's “Autocomplete Interviews”, Vanity Fair’s “Lie Detector Interviews”, Glamour’s “You Sang My Song”, GQ’s “Actually Me”. Joe is an advisor to Masterclass, The Moth, Outlier.org and Tonebase Piano. He runs his own creative strategy agency/production company called Studio Sabia, with clients like Audible, Youtube, Spotify, American Express, Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, Carnegie Hall, and UNICEF. Joe is a lifelong classical piano lover and amateur pianist and considers himself the unofficial cultural ambassador to the country of Georgia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Maria Ressa is the co-founder 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 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.

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 “

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).

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

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 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.

Born in 1975, Natasha Lomouri was schooled in Georgia and in the US and started her university studies at the faculty of International Law and International Relations in Tbilisi State University and continued at the University of Bologna, Faculty of Political Science. She was awarded with a PhD in 2004 after defending her dissertation entitled Arab-Israeli Conflict: Peace Process at the end of XX Century at the Tbilisi State University. In 2011-2023, she was the director of Writers’ House of Georgia. She is the curator and concept author of the Museum of Repressed Soviet Writers. Since November 2023, Natasha has been the executive director of PEN Georgia.

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 brought up in Venezuela, Patrick Walsh studied law at Cambridge before becoming a literary agent. Having co-founded Conville & Walsh in 2000, he then sold the agency to Curtis Brown before founding PEW Literary in 2016. His clients have won or shortlisted for numerous literary awards.

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.

Peter Pomerantsev is a widely published author and one of the most important global thinkers when it comes to the war in Ukraine and its global implications. Peter is currently a Research Fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, but you will have seen his name on pages of the Financial Times, Time magazine, and the Atlantic to name just a few.

Earlier this year, he won the European Press Prize for his extraordinary essay on the importance of new, connected global narratives. Peter is an influential voice among Western policymakers. He has testified on the challenges of information war to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the UK Parliament Defense Select Committee. His book on Russian propaganda, Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, won the 2016 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, was nominated for the Samuel Johnson, Guardian First Book, Pushkin House, and Gordon Burns Prizes. It is translated into over a dozen languages. His latest book is This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality.

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

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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Social Entrepreneur, Critical Thinker and Public Speaker

A social entrepreneur with a specific interest in education, employability, the future of work, 21st-century skills and the global skills gap.
Salah is the founder of Macat International Limited, which is a unique venture set up in the UK to measure and develop critical thinking skills. He is also the founder of The Alexandria Trust, a London-based charity dedicated to restoring world-class education in the Arab region. Working with leading journalists, the Trust has established Al-Fanar Media, a bilingual online publication that covers news about education, arts and culture in the Arab world. Underpinning this work is his vision for a new era of philanthropy in the Arab world - catalytic philanthropy to support a step-change in education - that grew out of his extensive experience in the areas of business, political reform, institutional change, and international development. Salah is a board member of a number of organisations and previously a founding member of The Egyptian competitiveness Council, a member of the AUC Business School Advisory Board and the Business Sector Secretariat and the founding contributor/architect of Egypt's vision 2030.

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Sarah Natochenny is an actor and film editor. She is also a 2019 Voice Arts award winning voice actor best known for her work as Ash Ketchum on Pokémon for the last 17 years, currently in Its 25th season. Since 2006, she's been a go-to actor for protagonists in many animated series airing all over the world, reprising roles like Marian in Robin Hood and Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, and originating many roles in other films and long running series. She recently starred in a Webby winning podcast alongside Academy Award Nominee Gabourey Sidibe, called “If I Go Missing, the Witches Did It.” This year, she won her own Webby for best celebrity/fan social media. Sarah occasionally teaches group animation voice acting classes and has spoken about the business at UC Berkeley.

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Sevgil Musaieva is a Ukrainian journalist from Crimea, editor-in-chief of Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, recipient of a 2022 International Press Freedom Award, and featured in TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2022. Before joining Ukrainska Pravda, Musaieva served as a business reporter for the newspaper Delo (Happenings), the weekly Vlast Deneg (Power Money), and Forbes Ukraine, where she covered corruption in the oil and gas industries, among other topics.

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Shafi Karimi is founder of Afghan journalists in exile network (AJEN) and MUSALAS TV he is an award-winning multimedia journalist and writer who has been covering Afghanistan for the past 8 years, including reporting on the 2021 Taliban takeover. He is now based in France, and works for a range of international outlets, including France24 Television, Vice news, Mail Online, Nikkei Asia and UAE-based Akhbar Alaan. Shafi was previously based in Kabul where he reported for RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on television and radio, as well as TOLO News and Ariana News. He has covered the conflict in Afghanistan, the 2020 US withdrawal agreement, women’s rights and the threat from the Islamic State. Recent stories he has covered include the secret life of women soldiers and how lesbians are surviving Taliban rule, and he contributes regularly to Afghan social media forums.

"Born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Simon graduated as a Documentary Film Director from The National Film School of Denmark in 2009. His first feature documentary The Distant Barking of Dogs (2017) premiered on IDFA 2017, and was awarded Best First Appearance. It has since won several awards worldwide, among these the McBaine Documentary Feature Award at San Francisco's SFFILM Festival. It was shortlisted for an Oscar, nominated for an Emmy and Best Documentary at the European Film Award, and it won a Peabody. Simon most recent film A House Made of Splinters premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2022, and was awarded for Best Directing. It has since won several awards worldwide, among these the Dragon Award Best Nordic Documentary at Göteborg Film Festival, a Golden Alexander Award and FIPRESCI Award for best documentary at Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. It was nominated for an Oscar
and for Best Documentary at the European Film Award.

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Tamar (Tamuna) Chabashvili is a visual artist based in Amsterdam and Tbilisi. Her art practice revolves around archiving and tracing. Mapping personal histories and memories into visual and tactile narratives is a means for her to interpret and question the legacy of the past, and to find ways in which "counter-memories" or "counter-histories" can embody the space of silence. Her works often refer to local cultural contexts. They are based on functional objects made of cloth. In 2003 she co-founded the artists' initiative 'Public Space With A Roof' (PSWAR) in Amsterdam. From 2003-2007 it functioned as a project space producing large-scale research projects that blur the boundaries between the various roles that artists are expected to take on today: artist as activist, artist as producer, or artist as curator. Since 2008, PSWAR projects have been shown internationally.

Thomas Dworzak (b. 1972, Germany) is a photographer and member of the photo agency Magnum Photos. In the early 1990s, he started photographing mainly in the Caucasus and has since been documenting conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa.

He has regularly been contributing to The New Yorker, Time Magazine, National Geographic and many others and has published several books.

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Tolkun Umaraliev, Central Asia Russian Chief Editor at RFE/RL. Tolkun oversees new initiatives recently launched by RFE/RL for Central Asian audiences, including the Migrant Unit that covers issues of millions of Central Asian labor migrants working in Russia, Turkey and other countries. Prior to taking this role Tolkun was a Managing Editor for Current Time Digital where he played a key role in promoting Current Time across the internet and transforming it into a leading innovative media in the Russian-language digital world. Tolkun also worked with the BBC, Al Jazeera English and AFP.

Dr. Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher, journalist, writer, public lecturer and the president of PEN Ukraine. He is a doctor of political studies (France) and has a PhD in philosophy (candidate of science, Ukraine). He is also the analytics director at Internews Ukraine, one of the biggest and oldest Ukrainian media NGOs, chief editor of UkraineWorld.org, a multimedia project in English about Ukrainian, and associate professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. For his non-fiction and fiction books he has won the Myroslav Popovych Prize (2021), Petro Mohyla Prize (2021), Yurii Sheveliov Prize (2018), and Book of the Year prize in Ukraine (2018, 2015) among others. He is head of the board of the International Renaissance Foundation (OSI Network). He is an expert in information analysis and media literacy; architect and trainer at several media literacy projects within the activity of Internews Ukraine and UkraineWorld. He has co-founder and authored the podcasts Kult:Podcast (in Ukrainian) and Explaining Ukraine (in English). He is also the anchorman of TV programmes Ukraina Rozumna and Hromadske.Svit at Hromadske.ua (2016-2020). His articles and commentary have appeared in The Economist, Le Monde, Financial Times, New York Times, Newsweek, and he often gives comments to the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and France 24 among others.

Zahra Rasool is a three-time Emmy-nominated director, writer, producer and media entrepreneur whose storytelling and innovation centers marginalized communities and people of color. Still Here, her recent work about incarceration and gentrification in Harlem premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Throughout her 10-year career, Zahra has directed, written and produced numerous documentaries and creative fiction projects, as well as advertising campaigns and immersive experiences.

In May 2017, she created and launched a media innovation and storytelling studio, AJ Contrast; part of Al Jazeera Media Network. She was given a Gracie for Best National Online Producer by the Alliance of Women in Media Foundation (2021) along with 36 other awards that include an NABJ Award, Amnesty Media Award, RTDNA Award and two Online Journalism Awards (OJA). Zahra’s films have been screened at over 40 international film festivals including at Sundance, Sheffield DocFest and Berlinale.

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Zhanna Novik is a Sr. Social Media Producer at RFR/RL’s Belarus Service. She has worked there since 2017 as a social media producer, journalist, video-editor, she created first Instagram projects in Stories among Belarusian media, first web-game at the RFE/RL Belarus «Polyclinic».

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