Prof. dr. Cees J. Hamelink studied philosophy and psychology in Amsterdam. He is Professor of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor of Media, Religion and Culture at the Free University in Amsterdam.

Professor Hamelink has also worked as a journalist as well as a consultant on media and communication policy for several international organizations and national governments. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Communication Studies: Gazette, past president of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, president of the Dutch Federation for Human Rights, founder of the People's Communication Charter, and board member of the International Communication Association and the international news agency Inter Press Service. Professor Hamelink has guest-lectured in over 40 countries and was a special adviser to the United Nations for the World Summit on the Information Society. He has been working on a project to promote a positive role of the media and is pushing international agreements on media management for the prevention of conflict. He is also currently writing a book on this topic.

Among the sixteen books he has authored are Cultural Autonomy in Global Communications (1983), Finance and Information (1983), The Technology Gamble (1988), The Politics of World Communication (1994), World Communication (1995), The Ethics of Cyberspace (2000), and Human Rights for Communicators (forthcoming, 2003). Professor Hamelink is also a regular commentator on radio and television in the Netherlands.Professor Cees Hamelink has been working on a project to promotive a positive role of the media and is pushing international agreements on media management for the prevention of conflict. He is also currently writing a book on this topic.


(Source: http://www.falw.vu.nl/nl/onderzoek/athena-institute/staff/alphabetical-order/hamelink.asp)

Judith Marcuse, LL.D. (Hon.), Artistic Producer of Judith Marcuse Projects, is one of Canada’s senior artists and producers with an international career that spans over 40 years as dancer, choreographer, director, producer, teacher, writer and lecturer. She has created over 100 original works for dance, theatre and opera, for film and television, and has produced seven large-scale arts festivals. A pioneer in the field of art for social change, her activity in this area is internationally-recognized. Her work with young people has included the creation of ICE: beyond cool, which explored teen suicide; FIRE...where there’s smoke, which looked at violence in the lives of young people; and EARTH=home, which examined how we treat the planet and each other. Dr. Marcuse is Co-Director of the International Centre of Art for Social Change (ICASC), a partnership between Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University and Judith Marcuse Projects. This new centre is intended to serve as a global hub for communication, research and training in the quickly-growing field of art and community development (see www.ICASC.ca).

Tonee Ndungu is the Executive Director of Wazimba; a youth organization using text messaging and new media for peacebuilding and reconciliation in Kenya. Tonee is an interesting guy with a passion for living and an uncanny way of inspiring people. He finished University in 2004 with an International Relations and Journalism degree then left all of it for a youth organization he founded intent on using new media to help young people in Kenya rediscover the joys of self expression, self assertion and self reliance. He is a self-taught IT expert with Media Consultancy as his professional title and the Founder and Director of The Kenya Wazimba Youth Foundation. He is 30 years old.

Roos Lombo MA studied African Languages and Cultures at Leiden University. She works with Oikos in Utrecht. Oikos is an ecumenical non-governmental organisation, whose aim is to stimulate processes of change in The Netherlands that contribute to sustainable development for all. Oikos does this by campaigning, lobbying, organising conferences and workshops and producing informative material, backed up by research into the causes of poverty. Within oikosXplore, Oikos’ youth programme, Roos Lombo focuses on the role of religion in international cooperation and dialogue between young people from different cultural and religious backgrounds.

Actor and director, founder of Albugaa theater in 1980 and Festival of Abugaa days in 1999, which annually hosts "performances of the various states of Sudan and the Arab world and Africa and guests from around the world, founded the center of the stage in the conflict areas, which works to benefit from the role of the performing arts to promote peace and sustainable development and capacity-building provides theatrical experiences in conflict zones in Darfur in the cities and refugee camps, and offers performances throughout the world in Europe, Asia and America. the President of the General Union of Sudanese Dramatic Arts, Vice President of the International Theater iTi / UNESCO, the bureau chief in Sudan.

Julia (M.Sc., LL.M., both cum laude) studied Communication Science and International Relations at the Institute of Journalism and Communication Science (Germany), Hong Kong University (China) and the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands). She earned her second degree in International and European Law at the Amsterdam Law School.
Since 2003 she has been working as a research and teaching assistant at the Communication Science Department of the University of Amsterdam, which she has joined as a lecturer in 2006 teaching inter alia courses on “Conflict & Media”. She also has experience in consultancy for a number of human rights organizations and training courses for journalists in developing countries.

Gareth has worked as a Participatory Video facilitator for over seven years working with communities across Africa, Asia and the UK. Gareth is Projects Director for InsightShare (www.insightshare.org) running PV projects, training facilitators and managing the development of the InsightShare Video Hub in Lambeth, south London. Before joining InsightShare, Gareth worked as an independent PV facilitator and created campaign and advocacy films for various NGOs and social movements. For several years Gareth managed the OneWorldTV project - a pioneering online social documentary platform screening videos on a range of global justice issues - and worked as a writer for the Community Channel website. He has addressed various conferences and festivals on video for social change in the United States, UK, Netherlands and Africa.

Jean-Luc has been involved with PV since he was 13 years old. His first introduction to this methodology was in a training Chris Lunch ran after school clubs at Isis Middle school in Oxford. Following it, he was part of various PV youth projects until the age of 16. He then studied traditional film and video making at Manchester Metropolitan University. As soon as he finished, he moved to London and attended the PV facilitators’ course at the Lambeth Hub. He has been working for the Lambeth Hub ever since in a variety of roles, especially facilitating PV projects with young people and editing videos.

Leif Packalen has a background in development cooperation, civil service and NGO work. He is the founder and current Chairman of World Comics Finland and works now as a free-lance comics consultant and cartoonist in Helsinki, Finland. He lived and worked in Africa for more than ten years. He has run comics workshops in several countries in Africa, and in 2007, together with Sharad Sharma, he wrote the book Grassroots Comics – a development communication tool. He has also written several manuals on how to make comics and how to run comics workshops. Read more on the website: www.worldcomics.fi .