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Vera D. Kwakofi is a Senior News Editor, Commissioning with the BBC World Service and is responsible for the BBC’s International TV Operations in Africa. She leads teams of journalists based across Africa and in the UK who produce the multi-award-winning Africa Eye Investigations, Business, Health, Sport, Women, News Analysis and Factual and Youth content for Africa in English, French, and Swahili. Vera has more than 20 years of experience in international journalism and commissioning content across multiple platforms with a particular focus on telling African Stories to global audiences. She created the BBC Women of Africa Series, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She actively participates in various discussion panels promoting and providing a better understanding of the Africa region.

Vera holds an MSc in Consultant Management and Organisational Change from the University of London, Birkbeck College, and a BA Hons in Politics from the London Guildhall University. She also has a Diploma in Journalism and Mass Communications from the Ghana Institute of Journalism. Vera is a Trustee for the Serious Trust, a UK Arts charity that supports development and access to music and support for its creators.

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Babatunde Omilola manages the African Development Bank’s multi-billion-dollar response to the COVID-19 pandemic to save lives and livelihoods throughout Africa and to help African countries strengthen their health systems, stabilize their economies, and alleviate the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A global development leader, Babatunde served as Head of Development Planning with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York and led the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the monitoring and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) globally. He also co-chaired the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Task Force on Global Food and Nutrition Security Technical Team. Babatunde was UNDP’s Regional Practice Leader for poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa and UNDP’s Chief Economist and Head of Policy and Strategy in South Africa. He was also the Africa-wide Coordinator with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He handled the relationship of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with the African Union Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He has visited and delivered development assistance in over 80 countries worldwide in Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Babatunde was selected as a Fellow of Comparative Research Program for preventing and eradicating poverty by the International Social Science Council in 2014. He won the prestigious Ford Foundation International Fellowship in 2001 and the Graduate Research Fellowship of the International Development Research Centre in 2004 for his MPhil and PhD degrees in International Development and Development Economics from the University of Sussex. He is a writer and regular speaker on global development for international news agencies.

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Andrei Kureichik is a Belarusian playwright, director, publicist, and civil activist. As a writer and director prior to 2020, Andrei was especially beloved for his comedies and suspense thrillers. Following the contested presidential elections and brutal aftermath in Belarus in August 2020, Andrei gained an international following as a political playwright. Forced to flee the country as a member of the Coordination Council working with perceived winner Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s transition team, Andrei leveraged his creative energy to produce the documentary play “Insulted. Belarus(sia)” about the 2020 presidential elections, subsequent protests, and violent crackdown by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus. The play has been translated into 29 languages and received 200 readings and performances across the globe. Articles about the play have been published in Plays International and Europe, Contemporary Theatre Review, the Boston Globe, Dialog, and Theatre Journal.

As a member of the Coordination Council of Belarus, he was awarded the 2020 Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament. In 2020 Andrei founded the YouTube civil rights channel “Alternative Blogovision” which in one year became one of the leaders of the Belarusian segment of YouTube with more than two million of views per month.

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Rufaro Mudimu is a social entrepreneur that is dedicated to youth development and socio-economic transformation in Africa. Rufaro’s commitment to youth development in Africa is driven by her belief that socio-economic transformation and leadership of the continent is in its young people. She currently leads enke: Make Your Mark (enke), a leadership development organization that generates and incubates youth-led social impact and enterprise in South Africa. enke, meaning ‘ink’ in SeTswana, was started in 2009 to bridge socioeconomic inequality by connecting, equipping, and inspiring young people with the skills and experiences to realize their value, thrive, and mobilize for a better future for themselves and others. Additionally, Rufaro is the founding chairperson of the Youth Development Collaboration Lab South Africa, an initiative by South African youth development enthusiasts to build stronger collaboration in the sector. She is also on the Board of Ikamva Youth, which enables disadvantaged youth to pull themselves and each other out of poverty through education.

Beyond South Africa, Rufaro has contributed and been selected to various leadership and development initiatives, such as the Global Youth Steering Committee of the 2019 Goalkeepers Youth Action Accelerator. She is also a One Young World Ambassador and alumna of the 2018 Obama Foundation Leaders Africa Program. Rufaro holds a Master’s in Public & Development Management from the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Governance, a Social Entrepreneurship Certificate from the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and a B.A. Hons. Degree in International Development Studies and Communications Studies and Certificate in Non-Profit Management from York University (Canada).

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Sahar Albazar is an Egyptian MP and the Deputy Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee at the Egyptian House of Representatives. She is also the President of the forum of young Parliamentarians representing more than 179 countries. Before that, she was an advisor to the Minister of Social Solidarity and a social protection consultant at the World Bank on youth employability in Egypt.

In addition to her experience in the governmental sector and international organizations, she has worked at several Forbes top 500 companies including P&G, J&J, Abbott, and BP. Sahar was named a Young Global Leader in 2022. She holds an MPA from Harvard University.

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Kirsten Rulf has been working as a senior advisor for digital, technology, and innovation policy to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2019. She is Head of Division for General Digital Policy Issues and “Nerd-in-Chief” at the Federal Chancellery of Germany in Berlin. In her strategic leadership position, Kirsten is shaping Germany’s and Europe’s role in the geopolitics of tech. What does European digital sovereignty mean in a global context? How should Germany navigate the Great Power competition between USA and China?

Kirsten first started to think about these issues during her decade-long career as an award-winning journalist: as current affairs correspondent for Germany’s flagship TV news program “Tagesschau”. She has published extensively on social, economic, and political ramifications of the Internet, social media, and specific technologies, like AI, including for the BBC. She has worked in London, Brussels, Tel Aviv, and Beijing.

Prior to joining the Chancellery, Kirsten was a McCloy Fellow at Harvard University and graduated with a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. She taught courses on cyberconflict, on digital policy, and on compliance and computation at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School. Her first degree is a Masters in Latin and Ancient Greek Literature from Oxford University.

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Manasi Subramaniam is Editor-in-Chief at Penguin Random House India, where she heads the literary division’s flagship imprints: Allen Lane, Viking, Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Paperbacks, Penguin Classics. She has published some of the most exciting new voices across South Asia, including two winners of the Booker Prize, one winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and several winners and finalists of international awards including the National Book Awards, Folio, JCB, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Women’s Prize, Desmond Elliott, among others.

Manasi has been recognized for her contributions to global publishing and has been invited to the Frankfurt Buchmesse fellowship, the Bureau International de l’Édition Française fellowship, the Australia Council for the Arts Visiting International Publishers program, and the Zev Birger fellowship. She is committed to making publishing more inclusive and accessible and bringing underrepresented voices into mainstream media, and has spoken on trends in publishing at world forums.

Manasi has an MA in Renaissance Literature and has worked in amateur theatre and academic research on Shakespeare.

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Solangel Fernández is an architect, urban designer, and urban economist with 15 years of experience. Throughout her career, she has been in charge of directing urban development and sustainable mobility initiatives as well as large infrastructure projects, especially during trying political times. In Peru, Solangel directed the urban planning offices at the municipalities of San Isidro and San Borja where she and her team developed innovative strategies to transform public spaces for the wellness of communities. Additionally, she has participated and coordinated metropolitan urban plans, key for the development of the country, and directed urban regeneration projects in vulnerable human settlements over the hills of Lima. Previously, she worked on urban design projects in various cities across Uk, Europe and Asia.

Recently, Solangel held the position of Minister of Housing, Construction and Sanitation of Peru during the Transitional Government of President Sagasti. During her administration, as a historical milestone, the National Housing and Urbanism Policy and the Sustainable Urban Development Law were approved. She holds a Master’s degree in Urban Design from Oxford Brookes University and a Master’s degree in Land Economy from Cambridge University.

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Zhao Zhong is the founder and director of Green Camel Bell, a grass-root environmental NGO in Northwest China. At the local level, he conducts a range of programs and projects focusing on environmental education, water pollution monitoring, and community-based eco-agriculture and sustainable development. At the national level, he promotes and researches public participation in environmental decision-making and provides training and mentorship to grassroots partners. At the global level, he bridges Chinese overseas energy and forest investors and impacted communities of host countries promoting responsible green investment.

From 2015-16, as a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow, Zhong completed a year of course work and professional affiliation at the University of California, Davis on Natural Resources Management and Climate Change. In 2009, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and in 2017, he was nominated as an Asia 21 Young Leader by Asia Society. Zhong received his Bachelor’s degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from the Hefei University of Technology and a Master degree of Laws from the University of Hong Kong.

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Kyriacos Koupparis is Head of Frontier Innovations at the United Nations World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator. In this role, he leads a team that explores how emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotics – can be harnessed to catalyze impact within the context of humanitarian assistance and food security.

Previously, he worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as Senior Innovation Advisor where he designed and administered multi-million dollar programs to advance social and environmental prosperity across the globe. He spent the last 15 years working at the nexus between innovation and international development – first as a biomedical researcher working on drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases and further on in his career by managing programs to build better communities in emerging markets through science, technology, innovation and partnerships. He has worked in more than 20 countries throughout Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia through his various roles at the U.S. Department of State, USAID, and the United Nations.

Kyriacos is a native of Cyprus, was born in Johannesburg, and spent his adult years in the USA. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. He is a graduate of the Management of Technology program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Wayne State University.