Prof Dumisani Moyo

Dumisani Moyo is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at North West University (NWU). He is Professor of Media and Communication Studies, and his research interests include media policy and regulation; and media, politics, culture and technology in Africa, and he has published widely in these areas. His major works include four co-edited books: Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities (Wits Press, 2011); Media Policy in a Changing Southern Africa: Critical Reflections on Media Reforms in the Global Age (UNISA Press, 2010); Mediating Xenophobia in Africa: Unpacking Discourses of Migration, Belonging and Othering (Palgrave, 2020); and Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean: Global South Issues in Media , Culture and Technology (Palgrave, 2021). He has served as a board member for a number of international organisations, including the African Studies Association (ASA); the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC); the Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the Investigative Journalism Hub (IJ-Hub) where he is currently Board Chairperson.

Mrs Doris Viljoen

Doris Viljoen is the director of Institute for Futures Research (IFR) at Stellenbosch Business School, where she endeavours to interpret global as well as local trends and assess their relevance for South Africa and Africa. She has specialised skills in environmental scanning, the application of foresight methodology, scenario planning as well as strategy development. She has a wide range of research interests and is passionate about asking the right questions, searching for and finding relevant data as well as designing tools and techniques to facilitate thinking about plausible futures. She also lectures on Stellenbosch Business School’s Postgraduate Diploma and M Phil in Futures Studies.

Prof Barend Prinsloo

Barend Prinsloo, PhD, is an Associate Professor and serves as the Programme Leader for International and National Security within the School of Government Studies at the NWU. His expertise lies in the analysis of geopolitical events and their impact on South Africa, with a specific focus on threats to the State, including terrorism and transnational organized crime. As an author, he has contributed to numerous accredited academic, as well as opinion pieces in popular literature. As a speaker, panelist, and moderator, he has presented various papers on international platforms. His professionally accredited to the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals (IACSP) since his acceptance in 2017.

Niki Govender

Nikita Govender is an nGAP lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the North-West University (NWU), Potchefstroom Campus. Nikita began her academic journey at the NWU in March 2023 and is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Pretoria. She holds an LLB (cum laude) degree and an LLM Research (cum laude) degree from the Nelson Mandela University. Having worked in the field of international humanitarian law, Nikita is a humanitarian at heart. Her research is rooted in issues of global and regional armed conflict with specific focus on vulnerable, marginalised, and ostracised groups of persons.

Prof Blessed Ngwenya

Blessed Ngwenya is an Associate Professor in the Optentia Research Unit at North-West University, South Africa. He is the Director of Inclusion and Decolonial Praxis, a programme that focuses on research regarding the enhancement of the capabilities of diverse individuals, groups, and institutions. Prof. Ngwenya, who graduated with a DPhil in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford, has worked on inclusivity, diversity, decoloniality and sustainability projects. He is a transdisciplinary scholar who works on decolonising knowledge and has interests in structural inequities that encompass the law, identity, transformation, education rights and the media.

Prof Piet Croucamp

Piet Croucamp is an associate professor in the School of Government Studies, and is also involved in the Business School, at the North-West University. His research and writing are mostly on violence as a feature of vulnerable democracies. Interrogating the origins of public opinion is a curiosity and part-time hobby.