Majid Maqbool is an award winning journalist and writer based in Indian administered Kashmir. His writing has appeared in several Indian and international publications including Al Jazeera English, Foreign Policy, The New Humanitarian, Asia Sentinel, Griffith Review, Mint Lounge Magazine and The Hindu Magazine. On Twitter: @maqboolmajid.

Fréderike Geerdink is a Dutch freelance journalist who focuses on power structures and those who want to tear them down, working from the Netherlands and Kurdistan. She writes for a wide range of Dutch and English language media. Her latest book, This Fire Never Dies (about her year with the fighters of the armed Kurdish movement PKK), was just published in English. More on her website, or follow her on Twitter @fgeerdink.

Jayati Vora was born and raised in Mumbai. She has been a journalist since 2003, writing for a men’s monthly feature magazine and editing the theater section of TimeOut Mumbai. Since moving to New York in 2005 she has worked at The Nation Institute, Al Jazeera America, and Type Investigations. She has edited stories that went on to win major awards, including a Sidney and an Emmy. She now teaches entrepreneurs how to write compelling copy and hosts a writing-centric podcast called Cutting Chai Stories. Follow her on Instagram @jayativora.

Fatima Ayub has two decades of experience working on global conflict, human rights crises and political advocacy, with a regional emphasis on South Asia and the Middle East. She has worked for major policy and rights organizations such as the International Crisis Group, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Open Society Foundations, and Human Rights Watch. Follow her on Twitter @thecynicist.

Elena Sheppard is a Brooklyn-based writer who writes about everything from culture and the arts to history and personal essays. She is at work on a family memoir about the Cuban Revolution. You can connect with her on Twitter @eleshepp.

Dr. Sonia Languille is a Team Manager with the Education Program at Open Society Foundations, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world. She works on issues related to the strengthening of public education systems. Between 2017 and 2020, she co-led OSF’s Higher Education Support Program and managed portfolios to support refugees’ access to higher education and knowledge production in the global South. She is also a research fellow at the Centre for Education and International Development at University College London. Her research interests center on the relationship between the state and the market in education, and more generally, on the political economy of education finance in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to joining Open Society, Sonia worked for various aid agencies in the fields of state reform, public finance and education policy. Sonia holds two masters in development economics and international affairs from the Sorbonne and a PhD in development studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London).

Dia Kayyali is Associate Director for Advocacy at Mnemonic, the umbrella organization for Syrian Archive, Yemeni Archive, and Sudanese Archive. In their role, Dia focuses on the real-life impact of policy decisions made by lawmakers and technology companies about content moderation and related topics. Previously, Dia served as Program Manager for tech + advocacy at WITNESS. They got their start in digital rights as an Activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Dia serves as co-chair for the Advisory Network to the Christchurch Call. On Twitter @DiaKayyali.

Katie is a British freelance journalist, specializing in human rights and the environment, and assistant editor at award-winning quarterly magazine, Index on Censorship. She was co-editor of a special Lush Times magazine championing social and environmental regeneration, and co-founded the Lush Times online platform. She has travelled the world to report on issues such as vegan activism in Toronto, regenerative farming in India, and the destruction of Sacred Natural Sites in Kenya. She also reported on the UK’s controversial undercover policing scandal.

She has a Journalism Master’s degree from Bournemouth University, and has been a finalist for the New Media Writing Prize and the Fresher’s Writing Prize. Katie lives on the south coast of England.

Follow her on Twitter at @katie_dancey.

Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist and the author of ‘Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans’. Follow him on Twitter @JasminMuj.

Nina Jankowicz is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute in Washington, DC, where she studies the intersection of democracy and technology in Eastern Europe and beyond. She is the author of How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News, and the Future of Conflict. Follow her on Twitter @wiczipedia.