(South Africa) os the stage name/nom de plume of rapper, writer, poet, actor and activist Simon Witbooi. He grew up impoverished in Capetown, where rap and hiphop became his outlet for the social inequality he saw all around. Although he began in English, Afrikaans quickly took over as his chosen langauge. HemelBesem (Heaven's Broom) calls himself an edutainer or educator because he wants to build bridges between communities and address African social issues. In his 2017 book God praat Afrikaans (God Speaks Afrikaans), he passionately defends the Afrikaans language. He is an ambassador for the Afrikaans Language and Culture Society (ATKV) and visits schools on a yearly basis in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch for the Woorde Open Wêrelde (WOW) project. He is a descendant of Hendrik Witbooi, one of the greatest 19th-century resistance heroes during the genocide by the German colonizers in Southwestern Africa, now Namibia.

is a political scientist at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS, part of Erasmus University Rotterdam) in The Hague and interested in transformative change and social movements, Together with his international students, he looks for alternative ways to support political democracy at a grassroots level. He constantly seeks out new forms of research, including "storytelling", which has become an increasingly important research method.

(Uganda) grew up in Uganda and studied creative writing at the University of Lancaster in the UK; she received her doctorate in the same subject. In 2013 she received the Kwani Manuscript Project for her thesis project, The Kintu Saga. This prize is given to still-unpublished manscripts by African writers. Her manuscript was published as a novel, titled Kintu, in 2014. She has won various other prizes including the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for "Let's Tell This Story Properly" and the 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. A mixture of Ugandan oral storytelling traditions, folktakes, myths, biblical elements and history is characteristic of her work. She lives and works in Manchester, where she teaches creative writing at the university.

(Kenya) is a political scientist who graduated cum laude in Politics and Development, did post-doctoral work in Management of Health and Psychosocial Services in developing countries, and has a diploma in Labour Studies and Management. He was a researcher with the European Centre for Development Policy Management and with the African Migration and Development Policy Centre in Nairobi, as well as with the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Until 2016, Ong'ayo atatched to the University of Utrecht, and now he is a researcher at the Faculty of Arts and Culture at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences. He is especially focused on political developments, migrantion and politics within the African diaspora. Ong'ayo is also a member of the commission for development cooperation of the Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Dutch government.

(Scheveningen, NL, 1940) is a socially and societally engaged economist and former minister and MP for the Dutch Labour Party. In a large number of leading positions with international and UN organizations he has shown a strong commitment to peace and to fighting poverty in the world. Pronk was  the Minister for Development Cooperation in the cabinets of the Den Uyl, Lubbers III, Kok I and Kok II goverments. At the UN he held position such as the Vice Secretary General of UNCTAD, head of the UN peace mission in Sudan, and chairman of the UN conference on climate change. He is a professor emeritus in the theory and practice of international development of the International Institute of Social Studies. He is also a board member of Writers Unlimited.

(Gambia, 1964) was raised on culture: as of his fifth birthday, he studied to become a kora player. He is a true "jalli" (griot), meaning someone who passes on history though song and music. The Fiscoband, which he founded in 1993, was one of the first groups to combine kora with Western instruments. Kutayeh has lived in the Netherlands since 1996, and has performed at many festivals and venues with his Jalliya Ensemble, such as at the Concertgebouw, Tivoli Vredenburg, Melkweg, Philips Cenrum and the Schiecentrale. Later, he also founded the successful ensembles Jalliyabaa and KoraFusion, in which he frequently collaborates with musicians from all kinds of disciplines. Since 2000 he has given kora lessons at the Amsterdam Conservatory.