Rosental Alves  

Founder & Director of the Knight Center for Journalism, University of Texas, USA

Rosental Calmon Alves is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Knight Chair in Journalism and the UNESCO Chair in Communication and is also the founder and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. Created in 2002, the center has benefited thousands of journalists around the world with training programs. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the center has helped journalists to create a new generation of organizations dedicated to elevating the professional and ethical standards of journalism in their countries. In 2016 was awarded with the Maria Moors Cabot Prize.

Shan Wang 

Staff Writer at The Nieman Journalism Lab, USA

Shan Wang is a staff writer for Nieman Journalism Lab, where she reports on the future of journalism in an internet age and is currently helping the Lab expand its coverage of digital innovation outside the U.S. Before she joined the Lab, she worked for Boston.com and freelanced for many other Boston-based outlets. Before journalism, she was an editorial assistant for humanities books at an academic publisher.

Mario García, PhD 

CEO and Founder of García Media, USA

Dr. Mario Garcia is CEO/Founder of García Media. He is Senior Adviser on News Design at Columbia University's School of Journalism in New York.

Mario has been a consultant to over 700 media companies in 120 countries and is the author of 13 books.

Mario has devoted more than 40 years to redesigning publications, and has personally collaborated with over 700 news organizations from such large projects as The Wall Street Journal to medium-size newspapers, such as The Charlotte Observer or smaller ones in the heartland of America, such as the Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World or the weekly of the oil and energy industry, Upstream (Norway). He and his team are currently helping the McClatchy newspapers in the United States with a rethinking of its 29 titles in what is called Project 2020.

Mario has received over 300 SND Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. People Magazine en Español selected Mario as among the 100 Most Influential Hispanics. He is a 2011 recipient of the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism.  In 2015, Mario became the recipient of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's Charles O'Malley Excellence in Teaching Award.

Mădălina Ciobanu 

Senior Reporter at journalism.co.uk, UK

Madalina Ciobanu is senior reporter at journalism.co.uk, a one stop shop for all things journalism. The website publishes news on all of the latest innovations that are changing the industry, provides training and experience-sharing events to help people and companies improve their digital skills, and it hosts journalism’s leading jobs board. In her role, Madalina writes news, features and analysis about media innovation, produces a weekly podcast and co-organises Journalism.co.uk's digital journalism conference, newsrewired.

Nick Tjaardstra 

Director, Global Advisory, WAN-IFRA, Germany

Nick runs our most advanced digital programmes, travelling the world to stay updated on tech trends and new funding models, from VR to crowdfunded news.

He started his career in London and has over ten years experience in innovative digital projects and collaborative working.

Before joining WAN-IFRA, he managed IT projects for ExxonMobil, Deutsche Bank and the European Patent Office, and facilitated the exec forums and conferences for the e-gov agency London Connects. He has a Diploma in Creativity, Innovation & Change from the Open University Business School.

Peter Lamb 

President, Lamb Consulting, USA

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Lamb is a Strategy Consultant, now living in Miami, Florida, and specialising in media companies. "The goal of my consulting practice is to utilise the sophisticated strategic marketing principles and techniques, learned while doing my MBA at Harvard Business School, meshing them with a hands-on sales approach, to generate new revenue streams for publications and websites. ROI is achieved by focusing on NEW-NEW revenue ... from customers that have never used our products before: print or online."

Dmitry Shiskin 

BBC World Service Digital Development Editor, BBC, United Kingdom

Dmitry is responsible for developing and implementing the BBC’s digital editorial offer for all 28 non-English foreign language new services (soon to be 40 due to expansion in Asia, Africa and Europe). Originally from Moscow, Russia, Dmitry has worked in various editorial-development roles for the digital section of BBC News. These roles have required liaison between editorial, product and strategy teams in order to drive innovation and develop new ways of reaching audiences, increasing engagement across the world and, crucially, driving culture change is newsrooms.