Naminata Diabate is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University and serves on the Advisory Board of the African Institute at the Global Studies University in the United Arab Emirates. A leading scholar of African and African Diaspora Studies, sexuality, and gender, she works across Malinké, French, Nouchi, Spanish, and Latin. Her interdisciplinary research spans literary fiction, cinema, visual art, new media, and oral traditions, examining embodied agency in the neoliberal, image-driven present.

Her award-winning book, Naked Agency: Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020), received the 2021 Best Book Prize from the African Studies Association and the 2022 First Book Award from the African Literature Association. Her scholarship on defiant disrobing, pleasure, and queerness appears in academic and public venues worldwide. She has delivered lectures across the United States, Senegal, Kenya, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Diabate recently completed Pleasure and Displeasure and is at work on Digital Insurgencies and Bodies. She has been recognized as one of 150 Cultural Advocates by Art Africa and named among the Top 10 African Scholars to Watch in 2024 by The Africa Report.

Chanel Boateng is a Ghanaian-British businesswoman and Ashanti traditional leader, serving as Queen Mother (Benkumhemaa Siannanmu) of the Benkumhene Royal Family in Kona, Ashanti Region. A direct descendant of the 13th Asantehene, Nana Prempeh I, and known traditionally as Nana Ama Oforiwaa II, she is the sixth occupant of the family stool through her maternal lineage.

Through her digital platform, she documents and shares her journey as a queen with a global diaspora audience interested in African heritage and culture. Over more than 15 years, she has built a following of over 500,000 by showcasing lifestyle, culture, and real estate content.

Committed to empowering women in her community through sport, she became co-founder of Kona Women’s FC in January 2026. Her initiative to support young women through football is backed by The Commonwealth Secretariat, the Ghana High Commission UK, Catalyst in Community (the committee leading The Commonwealth Cup), and Young Charter (Geoff Thompson MBE).

Throughout her career, she has partnered with hundreds of mainstream brands, including Dove, Sky, Virgin, Google, and many more, establishing herself as a trusted voice in digital media, culture, and business.

Amara Ogara is an alternate knowledge producer whose work centers on using storytelling to enact social impact and cultivate communal wellness. She began her social media journey as a teenager, using digital space as a way to make sense of the childhood trauma she carried quietly through life. What started as a search for understanding became a platform for communion and connecting with strangers across the world who were willing to share their pain in hopes of healing it.

Over the years, Amara has built her platforms into a warm corner of the internet — an intimate window into the life of an African lesbian woman navigating marriage, migration, and selfhood. Her work documents daily wellness practices, especially her intentional use of food as a form of care and embodiment. She speaks candidly about family acceptance, cultural tension, and the ongoing negotiation between personal truth and societal expectation.

Through soft storytelling, digital intimacy, and radical honesty, Amara reframes ordinary life as a site of healing, resistance, and love.

Her Ladyship Justice Sedinam Awo Kwadam (Mrs.) is a distinguished Ghanaian jurist renowned for her intellectual rigour, clarity of reasoning, and unwavering commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law. Serving on the Bench in Ghana for the past 11 years, she has delivered notable decisions in several high-profile matters, including the Marwako food poisoning case, where she addressed issues of corporate liability and consumer protection; the Bolt identity theft and data protection case, which engaged emerging questions of digital privacy and platform responsibility; the Vince Kontoh breach of promise to marry dispute, where she examined the intersection of personal relationships and enforceable civilobligations; and the phone repairer cybercrime case, which explored criminal responsibility in the misuse of electronic data. 

Beyond her judicial work, Justice Kwadam is deeply engaged in scholarly discourse on criminal procedure, judicial accountability, and international criminal justice, and is actively contributing to proposals for reforming Ghana’s Criminal Procedure Act, 1960 (Act 30) in alignment with the 1992 Constitution and international human rights standards. She is widely respected for advancing principled adjudication and rights-based jurisprudence within Ghana’s evolving legal landscape.

Baaba J is a singer, songwriter, and performer from Tema, Ghana, known for blending Ga and English in her Afro-folk and indie music. Inspired by artists like Asa, Koffee, Obongjayar, and Abdullah Ibrahim, her music explores themes of self-love and preservation while also advocating for social issues, women’s rights, and queer rights in Ghana.  

Edem is a PhD student in the Film and Media Department at Queen’s University, and her research lies at the intersection of first-person cinema, the autoethnographic film, queer African cinema, Feminist & Activist media as Alternative media.

Angel Maxine is Ghana’s first openly transgender artist and a leading activist, and multidisciplinary artist whose work spans music, performance, public speaking, and advocacy. Through her art and platform, she boldly addresses LGBTQI+ and trans rights, gender equality, healthcare access, sex workers’ rights, and social justice, amplifying the resilience of queer communities in Ghana and the African diaspora while fostering visibility, empowerment, and liberation

Zulaiha Dobia Abdullah is the award-winning Founder of  Divaloper, a non-profit organization established in 2019. Divaloper aims to inspire, train and mentor more women to pursue careers in STEM and to foster the personal growth of adolescent girls and young women in Ghana. Divaloper has actively empowered over 6000 Africans, through Training , media campaigns, mentorship , events and online campaigns. 

Zulaiha is also a Speaker, Software developer, Digital transformation consultant, and experienced Media Host (TV & Radio). She has spoken at over 50 events including those hosted by and/ or under the auspices of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM ), the UN Development programme (UNDP) , Southern Africa Embrace Foundation, EU Ghana.

Zulaiha has produced and hosted shows across diverse Ghanaian TV and Radio channels. She holds multiple degrees including a Computing and Accounting degree from the University for Development Studies, a Bachelor of Laws from GIMPA and a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Ghana. 

Zulaiha’s professional journey has been marked by a commitment to leveraging technology for social good and empowerment, particularly among youth and women. Through initiatives like Startup Grind Tamale and the Grow with Google program, she has championed entrepreneurship and tech literacy.

Zulaiha has a vision of using technology to foster positive change and to empower 1 million girls in Technology in Ghana by 20230 through her NGO Divaloper in partnership with key stakeholders. Zulaiha is determined to make Ghana a better place, one community at a time.