Ivor Agyeman-Duah is a Centenary Research Associate in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London; Chair of the Advisory Board of the Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa and a Governing Member of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. Educated in Ghana, Britain and the United States, Agyeman-Duah has received 15 awards, fellowships and grants from around the world including as the second African to receive the prestigious Distinguished Friend of Oxford award for 2012 from the University of Oxford and decorated with one of the highest state honors in Ghana.

Educated in Ibadan, Nigeria, and Leeds, England, where he obtained an Honours degree in English, Wole Soyinka has held Fellowship and Professorial positions in the Dramatic Arts and Comparative Literature at the Universities of Ibadan, Lagos and Ife (Nigeria), Legon (Ghana), Sheffield and Cambridge (England), Yale, Cornell, Harvard, Emory, Nevada, Loyola Marymount (USA). He continues lecturing as Visiting Professor, Distinguished Scholar etc. in other American, European, African and Chinese universities.Essentially a playwright, Wole Soyinka is also prolific as essayist, poet, novelist and theatre director. He writes mainly in English, but his works are distinguished by their exploration of "the African world view, and are steeped in Yoruba mythology, imagery and dramatic idioms.

Akwasi Aidoo is a Senior Fellow at Humanity United, a foundation dedicated to building peace and advancing human freedom around the world. Prior to that, Akwasi was the founding Executive Director of TrustAfrica, an African grant-making foundation that works in conflict and post-conflict countries on the continent.Akwasi currently chairs the Boards of the Fund for Global Human Rights, and the Open Society Foundations’ Africa Office; and previously served as a trustee of several international organizations.Akwasi was educated in Ghana and the United States and received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Connecticut in 1984. He has taught at universities in Ghana, Tanzania, and the United States. He writes poetry and fiction in his spare time.

Dr. Murunga is the Executive Secretary of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi serving at CODESRIA on leave of absence. He holds a BA and MA from Kenyatta University, Nairobi and an MA and Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA. Among other publications, he is joint editor of Kenya: The Struggle for a New Constitutional Order published by Zed Books in Association with Nordic Africa Institute (2014). He was a visiting research fellow at the African Studies Centre of Oxford University in 2008 and at the Nordic Africa Institutes’ African Guest Researchers Fellowship in 2009. Dr. Murunga sits on the Board of Directors of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

Pat Made is a leading gender and media consultant, is former director-general of Inter Press Service and former editor of the Southern African Economist magazine. During her tenure at IPS Pat played a key role in introducing a gender policy and transforming the editorial content of the sixth- largest news agency in the world from a gender perspective. Her consultancy work involves research on media’s coverage of events and issues from a gender perspective, compiling and writing handbooks and toolkits for the media and audiences in the areas of gender and media, HIV and AIDS, human rights, governance and women’s human rights. She also works as a media trainer.

Pamela is a seasoned professional whose versatile career includes higher education and research management, media/communication and literature, human resources development, student affairs as well as international relations. Her internationally recognised publications include a special focus on gender issues, postcolonial literature, the oral tradition and the broader media. She is currently the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Student Development and Support at the University of the Western Cape after serving as Dean of Students at the University of the Witwatersrand till end of 2016.

Maitseo Bolaane has a PhD from the University of Oxford (2004). She is currently an Associate Professor, Faculty of Humanities at the University of Botswana, teaching various courses in African history. She is the Head of History and Director of the San Research Centre at the University of Botswana.She was visiting Associate Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka; visiting Research Fellowship, Laurier Bradford, University and Trent University, Peterborough, Canada; and Fellow, Johns Hopkins Fogarty African Bioethics Training Program in Bioethics, Baltimore, Maryland, USA and in 2012 she was awarded the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship