K. Shanmugam, is a Singaporean politician and lawyer. A member of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), he has been the Minister for Law since May 2008 and the Minister for Home Affairs since October 2015. He previously served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from May 2011 to September 2015. He has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1988. Shanmugam was educated in Raffles Institution from 1972 to 1977, before going on to study law at the National University of Singapore where he graduated at the top of his class with a First Class Honours degree in 1984.

Gilles Demptos is Director, Asia, of WAN-IFRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers. In this position, he heads WAN-IFRA's Singapore-based subsidiary activities in Asia Pacific. One of the organisation's core mission is to support traditional news media publishers in their transition from print to digital through consulting, research, publications, events and training services.

Prior to his present position, Gilles was Director of Publications and Events at WANIFRA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. He was also the Editor of the bi-monthly business magazine for the Asian news publishing industry, Asian Newspaper Focus, which is distributed in over 20 countries.

With 14 years experience in the news media industry, Gilles started his carrier in the press department of the European Commission Representation in Madrid, Spain. He joined the IFRA organisation as Business Development Manager for Spain and Portugal in 2002 and has been since then a regular speaker at news media events in Europe, America and Asia.

Audrey Quek started her career in journalism as a sub-editor before taking up a Singapore Press Holdings scholarship to further her studies at the National University of Singapore.
After completing her degree in political science, she joined the newspaper’s Foreign Desk and was initially tasked with editing its regional pages.
She has also helped edit the Comment and Analysis and Forum pages in The Straits Times. In 2015, she became Foreign Editor. She and her team in the newsroom and a network of correspondents in key cities around the globe are responsible for the coverage of world news in The Straits Times.

Eugene K.B. Tan is Associate Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU) where he teaches at the law, business, and social sciences schools. He is also an adjunct faculty at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and taught, as a visiting professor in 2013 and 2014, at Yonsei University Law School in South Korea.

Eugene’s inter-disciplinary research interests include constitutional and administrative law, law and public policy, business ethics and corporate social responsibility, and the government and politics of Singapore. An active analyst in the local and international media, Eugene also regularly contributes op-eds to the various Singapore and international media outlets.

Between February 2012 and August 2014, Eugene served as a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore's 12th Parliament. Admitted to the Singapore Bar, Eugene was educated at the National University of Singapore, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Stanford University where he was a Fulbright Fellow.

Fiona Tan is from the National Archives of Singapore, where she currently oversees the Archives Reading Room. She provides reference services and promotes interest in the archive’s rich documentary collections. She was previously involved in the curation of the two exhibitions organised by the National Archives of Singapore, Law of the Land: Highlights of Singapore’s Constitutional Documents and Surviving the Japanese Occupation: War and its Legacies, an exhibition at the Former Ford Factory.

Irene Jay Liu leads Google News Lab in the Asia-Pacific region. She was previously an investigative reporter and data editor at Reuters, where she was a 2017 Pulitzer finalist in the national reporting category. Earlier, she worked at the South China Morning Post and as a political reporter with the Times Union in Albany, New York.  She teaches data-driven investigative journalism at the University of Hong Kong and Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Karolin Schwarz is a fact-checker at correctiv.org, an investigative nonprofit medium. CORRECT!V's team of four aims to debunk rumours circulating on Facebook as well as false claims in general. In 2016, she founded Hoaxmap.org, a platform dedicated to refutiating false news about refugees and migrants in German speaking countries.

Mr Lock Wai Han is the Chairman of the Media Literacy Council. He is the CEO of SGX-listed company OKH Global Ltd. Mr Lock also holds directorships on the Boards of Catalyst-listed Secura Group and the Singapore Sports School, and advises several technology start-ups. He served in the Singapore public sector for more than 20 years, during which he held various leadership roles in the Singapore Police Force and the Administrative Service, including Commissioner of the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority; Director of the Criminal Investigations Department and Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications & the Arts.

Mr. Mahfuz Anam is the Editor–Publisher of The Daily Star, the highest selling English newspaper in Bangladesh commanding 75 percent of the English newspaper market. During his Editorship (1993 - till date), The Daily Star has become the most respected and trusted English language newspaper of the country. He pursued a vigorous editorial policy of strengthening democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of media and fundamental rights. His occasional column "Commentary" has gained tremendous popularity among readers.

In 1998, Mr. Anam was made the Publisher and CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Mediaworld Limited, the owning company of the paper.
Before co-founding The Daily Star in July 1991, he worked for 14 years with UNESCO from 1977 to December 1990 in various public affairs and media capacities in Paris, New York and Bangkok. His last position with UNESCO was in Thailand, Bangkok as “Regional Media & Public Affairs Representative” for Asia and the Pacific, covering 31 countries from which he resigned in December 1990, returned to Bangladesh, and started this paper.

Mr. Anam holds B. A. Honours and a Masters Degree in Economics from Dhaka University. During his student life, he was the winner of All Pakistan Debating Championship for 3 consecutive years, winning championship in Karachi, Dhaka and Lahore in 1967, 1968 and 1969 respectively.

He started his journalism career in March 1972 and worked as Staff Correspondent of Bangladesh Observer and Assistant Editor of Bangladesh Times before starting his overseas career in 1977. He was awarded Jefferson Fellowship in Journalism in 1976 by the Honolulu based East - West Center. He was given the “Courageous Journalism” Award, 2016, by the East-West Centre, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
He is the founding President of Newspapers Owners Association of Bangladesh (NOAB). He is presently Secretary General of the Editors’ Council of Bangladesh.

A journalist in Asia for nearly 35 years, Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital only news site that is leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler's executive editor and CEO, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail eight times to stay free. Rappler's battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary, A Thousand Cuts. 

For her courage and work on disinformation and 'fake news,' Maria was named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Time's Most Influential Women of the Century. She was also part of BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2019 and Prospect magazine's world's top 50 thinkers. Among many awards, she received the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom Award from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, the Knight International Journalism Award from the International Center for Journalists, the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Shorenstein Journalism Award from Stanford University, the Columbia Journalism Award, the Free Media Pioneer Award from the International Press Institute, and the Sergei Magnitsky Award for Investigative Journalism. 

Before founding Rappler, Maria focused on investigating terrorism in Southeast Asia. She opened and ran CNN's Manila Bureau for nearly a decade before opening the network's Jakarta Bureau, which she ran from 1995 to 2005. She wrote Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism.

Zakir Hussain joined The Straits Times' Political Desk in 2005 and has reported on local and regional political developments as well as security issues, terrorism and community relations. He was based in Jakarta as the newspaper's Indonesia bureau chief from 2011 to 2014, before returning to Singapore as deputy political editor. He was appointed Political Editor in September 2016. He has a bachelor's degree in history and politics, and a master's degree in journalism.