Stephanie Busari

Stephanie Busari is Senior Editor for Africa at CNN Worldwide. She heads up CNN's Nigeria bureau where she pioneered CNN's first digital and multiplatform bureau. She also reports on-air for CNN International and led the network's 2019 Nigeria presidential election coverage. Stephanie oversees CNN Africa's digital editorial and operational strategy, crafting a new narrative for Africa and chronicling the continent's changemakers and innovators. In April 2016 Stephanie exclusively obtained the ‘proof of life’ video that showed that the missing Chibok schoolgirls were still alive. This video kickstarted crucial negotiation talks with Boko Haram that led to the eventual release of more than 100 of the kidnapped schoolgirls. She was also…

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Dayo Olopade

Dayo Olopade works at the intersection of media and technology, with more than a decade of content, strategy, product, communications, partnerships, contracts, and change management expertise. As Partnerships Lead at YouTube, she structures and negotiates product and licensing deals with video storytellers–major TV broadcasters and cable networks, sports leagues, movie studios, digital native publishers, and fresh, individual voices. She gets to do this across Africa, where the content industry is dynamic and creative problem solving is fundamental. Dayo began her career as a reporter in Washington covering politics, policy, and the Obama administration. She spent two years in Nairobi as a New America Foundation fellow, reporting The Bright Continent, a…

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Biola Alabi

Biola Alabi is an African media expert with over 25 years of local and global media experience. She is currently CEO at Biola Alabi Media Consulting, a content creation based in Lagos, Nigeria working across the world in broadcast, telecommunications, and digital industries. Biola was listed as one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa by Forbes in 2013. She previously worked with leading brands DSTV, Africa's biggest pay-tv operator, Sesame Street, Bigwords.com, and Daewoo Motors. She oversaw the launch of AfricaMagic Hausa and Yoruba in 2010 and AfricaMagic Swahili in 2011: channels that have made considerable contributions to the promotion of indigenous languages and cultures in Africa. She…

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Ann Iyonu

Ann Iyonu is Executive Director of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation. At the heart of the Foundation’s mandate is the protection of democratic integrity, the prevention of violent conflicts, and the promotion of the peaceful resolution of disputes across Africa. In her role she is involved in high-level mediation and conflict resolution in democratic emergencies and political transitions. Ann is also the coordinator of the West African Elders Forum (WAEF), a platform of former heads of state that draws on the experience and standing of its members to bring non-partisan insights and skills for defusing tension and reconciling positions for the sake of the sustenance and advancement of democracy in West…

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Chinwe Philomena Uwandu

Chinwe Philomena Uwandu retired from the service of the Federal Government of Nigeria in January 2020. In the course of her career as a Government Legal Advisor, she counseled the Federal Republic of Nigeria, its Agencies, and Overseas Missions on a diverse and complex range of legal issues. She also represented Nigeria at bilateral and multi-lateral meetings at sub-regional, regional, and international levels, and participated in the negotiation and preparation of bilateral and multi-lateral treaties, and other agreements. As Lead Counsel to Nigeria’s Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, Chinwe uncovered crimes and gross human rights violations during thirty years of Military dictatorship in Nigeria. She also prosecuted criminal cases on…

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Bibi Bakare-Yusuf

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is Co-Founder and Publishing Director of one of Africa's leading publishing houses, Cassava Republic Press, and is Co-Founder of Tapestry Consulting, a boutique research and training company based in Abuja focused on gender, sexuality, and transformational issues in Nigeria. Bibi has worked as a gender and research consultant in the public, private, and development sectors for the BBC, UniFem, ActionAid, eShekels, Central Bank of Nigeria, the European Union, and others. She sits on the editorial board of a number of influential journals and is the chair of board for The Initiative for Equal Rights, the largest organization in West Africa devoted to LGBTQ issues. Bibi is also a…

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Episode 42: 2020 World Fellow Stephanie Busari

CNN correspondent Stephanie Busari discusses why she became a journalist, how she obtained the ‘proof of life’ video that showed that the missing Chibok schoolgirls were still alive and which kickstarted crucial negotiations with Boko Haram that led to the eventual release of more than 100 of them.

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World Fellows Program marks 16th year

When Norbert Mao came to Yale in 2003, he was a 36-year-old member of Parliament, representing the city of Gulu in the northern region of Uganda. At the time, the area was the epicenter of a decades-long war, and Mao was working with other parliamentarians to bring peace. During his four months on campus, Mao made the most of Yale’s extensive resources and academic offerings. He took advantage of the one-on-one media training provided by the World Fellows Program. Courses in corporate leadership and grand strategy helped expand his leadership skills, and a writing course helped him refine his communications skills. Upon returning home, he jumped into the rough-and -tumble…

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