Speakers

Siddhartha Mitter is a writer on contemporary art and its social and civic dimensions. He writes in-depth artist profiles, features and reviews. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, reporting across the United States and in Africa,…

Dr Ntobeko Ntusi is the President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). He joins the SAMRC from the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, where he was the Chair and Head of the Department…

Dr Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP), played a leading role in the response to COVID-19 in South Africa through his visionary application of genomics and bioinformatics.

Novel Njweipi Chegou is an immunologist and a full professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. His academic journey began with training as a medical laboratory scientist in Cameroon, followed by…

Stephen is an Independent Advisor on philanthropy and social change. He is currently a Senior Advisor at the Omidyar Group – the network of philanthropies supported by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. He brings over 25 years of executive…

At nine years old, Mohamed Ali Diini fled Somalia’s civil war. Years later, he returned to help young Somalis navigate the challenges of conflict and poverty. Hoping to run entrepreneurship training programmes, he soon realised that many of the participants struggled…

Dominique Botha is a writer with an award‑winning body of work published locally and internationally. She combines creative practice with active cultural leadership and arts advocacy. She is a regular contributor of essays, reviews and creative work to South African…

Simon Freemantle is Standard Bank’s Senior Political Economist. He joined the bank in 2008, spending his first two years in the Nairobi office as an East African Analyst. In his current role, Simon is the dedicated South Africa political economist…

Carlos Ibáñez is Professor in Neuroscience at the School of Life Sciences of Peking University, the Chinese Institute for Brain Research in Beijing, China, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr Ibáñez is a member of the Nobel Assembly…