Top media practitioners, political and business leaders, diplomats, scholars, activists and other stakeholders will, on Friday, September 20, 2024, converge, for a virtual Dialogue on “The Media of the Future,” a side event of the Black Futures Summit taking place on the sidelines of the 2024 United Nations Summit of the Future in New York, United States of America (USA).
The UN Summit of the Future is taking place during the 2024 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which will feature High Level Debates by leaders from different countries of the world who will congregate in New York.
Friday’s Dialogue, with the theme “The Media of the Future: Bridging the Gap Between the West and People of African Descent,” is being put together by Global Patriot Newspapers (GPNews), and will feature as Panelists, such well grounded personalities as Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, CEO, NiDCOM, Professor Akil Khalfani, Director, Africana Institute, Essex County College, New Jersey, USA, Oyiza Adaba, CEO AfricaRelated, Yul Anderson, President, African America Future Society, Simon Kolawole, CEO, The Cable Newspaper, Toyin Umesiri, CEO, Nazarau, Laolu Akande, Editor-in-Chief, Empowered Newswire and Nicky S. Coker Esq., Spokesperson, Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the UN.
The Dialogue, according to a statement by Simon Ibe, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Global Patriot Newspapers, will attempt a review of the current state of the media of People of African Descent in comparison with that of the West, make projections concerning what the ideal should be, and recommend what must be done for the existing gulf to be bridged, and for the media of People of African Descent to attain the desirable heights, in the interest of all.
The panelists are Hon. Alike Dabiri-Erewa, Simon Kolawe, Akil Khalfani, Oyiza Adaba, Yul Anderson, Toyin Umesiri and Madam Coker Esq
Hon. Dabiri-Erewa was a celebrated broadcast journalist who went on to become a multiple-term member of the Nigerian House of Representatives, before being appointed the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM).
Khalfani, the Director, Africana Institute of Essex County College, Newark, New Jersey, is an acclaimed pan-Africanist and a Professor of Sociology.
Adaba, daughter of Professor Tom Adaba, the pioneer Director General of Nigeria’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), is the CEO of New York-based multi-media organization, AfricaRelated, and the award-winning Producer of a widely acclaimed documentary on the internationally celebrated Ghana-born Sculptor, Professor El Anatsui.
Anderson, the brain behind the Black Futures Summit and Afro4UN, is a Future Analyst and the President of the African American Future Society (TAAFS) Inc.
Akande, the Host of a popular television show, Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, who served as Spokesperson for Vice President of Nigeria (2015-2023) and before then, the North American Bureau Chief for The Guardian in New York, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Empowered Newswire, an integrated news agency that he founded in New York.
Kolawole, Founder/CEO of frontline pan-African online media platform, The Cable Newspaper, was a Chevening scholar (2006).
Umesiri, the creator and host of the TV Show, Quantum Leap, which airs in Aurora, Illinois, USA; was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the Illinois District Export Council (ILDEC) in 2022.
Coker Esq. is Spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of Sierra Leone to the United Nations in New York for Sierra Leone’s two-year term on the Security Council (2024-2025).