Blog

Neil Blazevic is Manager of the Technology Program at DefendDefenders (formerly East and Horn of African Human Rights Defender’s Project), a Uganda-based sub-regional organisation working to protect and support human rights defenders and journalists. He organises and implements efforts to improve digital safety practices of human rights defenders and their organisations, aids activists to have a voice online, and supports electronic documentation of human rights data. He has contributed material to Security In A Box and Level-Up, two leading digital security education resources. Neil holds a CompTIA Security+ Certification and a MA in International Development Studies. He is an honourary Muganda since 2011.

Zawadi is currently the Director of 7th Sense Communications. As a digital media strategist and a feminist passionate about harnessing the power of social media for social change, Zawadi  designs, implements and supports social media strategies that drive conversations, build movements, mobilize citizen action, and galvanize voices for change and development in Africa and around the world. She has used her skills to spearhead and support several successful feminist online campaigns including #WaremboNiYes, #NereasVoice, #TakeBackTheTech, #BustTheMyths and #1BillionRising. She designed and led Kenya’s landmark #1MilliForJadudi crowdfunding campaign, for which she won a social media award.
She has served as an advisor to a number of women focused initiatives including Akili Dada & Mother Health International.  She has contributed to Africa’s dynamic sexual rights movements through research, publications, training, movement building, and resource mobilization and is a regular speaker on these topics. She is the author of “When I Dare To Be Powerful” a first-of-it’s-kind collection of short stories of women engaged in sex work in East Africa.   She also runs her blog Digital Ubuntu Africa which is a platform to help cultivate responsible digital citizenship in Africa.

Martha Chilongoshi is a Zambian Freelance Journalist with special interest in issues of governance, development, human rights and gender equality. Following her professional training, she has worked for two organizations in Zambia; first as a Publicity and Training Consultant and as a Program Officer for Governance and Development.
Recognizing the advent of the Internet and related high technology that enables community advocates to visualize greater opportunities for Africa’s increasingly tech-savvy youths, Martha uses the internet and social media platforms to drive conversation and enhance access to information.
Her most recent project was that of being the Online Media Team Lead for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) funded project, called the Zambia Elections Information Centre (ZEIC) a multi-stakeholder election monitoring and observation platform whose main objective was to connect citizens of Zambia to governance institutions and processes through sharing information in real time so that corrective measures would be implemented in order to enhance credibility and transparency.
Driven by a passion to help her community develop through information sharing, Martha has recently established a Website called Revolt Media, a creative Multi Media and ICTs for development and proactive advocacy Initiative focused on influencing the functioning of society through dissemination of information on leadership, governance, development, human rights, entrepreneurship, business and lifestyle with a special focus on women and young girls in Zambia and across the African Continent.

Nashilongo is a senior broadcast Journalist in Namibia with the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation where she is currently serves in an  Assistant Executive Producer/Assistant Editor of the Television Current Affairs Department. In addition to serving on the Curriculum Board of the Namibia University of Science and Technology’s department of Media and Technology.  This department is one of UNESCO’s 20 Schools of Excellence in Journalism in Africa, championing and mainstreaming Gender in their curricula.
She is passionate about issues of Governance, ICT, Development, HIV, Media and Women. As such, these are fields that she currently researches with International Research Organisations such as the Global Integrity and Transparency International, and previously the Web Index.
She graduated with an Honours Degree in Journalism in Communication Technology in 2009 from NUST and boasts a number of academic scholarships/fellowships awards from institutions, as well as recognition from Media Institute of Southern Africa. Nashilongo  is in the final stretch of her Master’s in Leadership Development in ICT in the Knowledge Society with the University of Mauritius. She is also a wife and mother.

Akua Gyekye is Facebook’s Public Policy Manager for Africa, where she focuses on issues relating privacy, safety and security, freedom of expression, the impact of the Internet on economic growth, and new opportunities for democratic engagement across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Before joining Facebook, Akua was working as a project finance lawyer, qualified to practice in NY and the UK, at Clifford Chance. Akua previously worked in Nigeria and Liberia as a legal adviser and rule of law specialist at the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation and as an anti-corruption lawyer at USAID.  Akua also has government experience (the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation & Development), NGO experience (the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, Lawyers Without Borders) and experience working for international think tanks (American Society for International Law, the European Institute, the Brookings Institute).
Akua holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and Society, International Relations and Spanish from American University, a Law Degree from Cambridge University in England and a Masters of Laws in International and Comparative Law from the George Washington University Law School.