CNN’s Senior International Correspondent, Nima Elbagir, is set to be the Keynote Speaker of the              two-day AWiM18 conference; the largest gathering of female African content producers from all over the world. A multi-award winning journalist, Nima Elbagir exposed the slave auctioning of African migrants in Libya in 2017, sparking a global outcry and earning her a George Polk Award, and the Royal Television Society award for ‘Scoop of the Year’.

According to the convener of the conference, Yemisi Akinbobola, the conference is “As we celebrate the year of the woman and the theme for this year is Visibility. In the wake of campaigns like the #MeToo movement, and gender pay gap scandals, networks like the African Women in the Media are important, not just so we women in the media can connect and support each other,  but so we can initiate change,” Yemisi said.

AWiM18 which will be held in Ibadan, Nigeria in June, she added is packed with panel discussions, project presentations, training workshops with subjects ranging from data journalism, to digital marketing. “AWiM’s FlashTalks Series promises to challenge perspectives on key issues, while the Pitch Zone gives journalists and media entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their ideas to editors, funders and investors. Media and communication scholars are also invited to submit to the event’s Call for Papers as there will be an academic track”.

African Women in the Media (AWiM) is a Facebook group that convenes annually. The group which wants to challenge the way media functions in relation to African women, seeks to inspire, support and empower its members, had its first convening event in Birmingham, UK with panels from both academia and industry in 2017 and Minna Salami as the keynote speaker.

Dr Yemisi Akinbobola is an award-winning journalist, academic, and media entrepreneur. A Nigerian living in the UK, her work is Africa focused covering stories from rape culture in Nigeria, to an investigative and data story on the trafficking of young West African football hopefuls by fake agents. The latter won the CNN African Journalist Award 2016 (Sports Reporting). Yemisi holds a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from Birmingham City University where she is the Award Leader for MA Global Media Management, and her research interest is in digital journalism and African feminism.  She is the founder of Stringers Africa, which connects freelance journalists in African countries with newsrooms worldwide, and she runs the African Women in the Media group. Founder also of IQ4News, a multimedia production company, she has freelanced for publications including the UN Africa Renewal magazine. Yemisi she has several years’ experience in communication management for charities.