Kenneth Uphopho is an Artistic Director, Acting coach, Writer, Arts Manager, Culture Advocate and Talent manager with over 25 years of extensive experience in Artistic Direction and Festival Management. Through the platforms that he created, Lagos Fringe & Abuja Fringe, in following the Edinburgh Fringe Festival model, Kenneth has produced and directed over 300 productions with some of Nigeria’s most exciting performers, writers, directors, and creative teams. By doing that he continues to invest in and promote new talent for the creative industry in Nigeria. Kenneth invests in the development of talent in the 16-35 years demography with his festival programmes that focus on learning through a series of conversations, workshops and networking events with established local and international facilitators. Kenneth supports these artists with free venues and technical assistance to present a creative mix of theatre, poetry, film, spoken word, cabaret shows, exhibitions, literature, dance and music etc at the fringe festivals. The vision is to make Abuja & Lagos and indeed Nigeria the culture hub of sub Saharan Africa by 2030.

Shola Thompson is regarded as a veteran in Radio, Film and Television in Nigeria. He started his career on radio at Silverbird’s Rhythm 93.7 in 2003 with a syndicated weekend program titled ‘The Silverscreen’, a show about upcoming movies, movie trailers and movie mistakes. He was also the host of the very popular show ‘Rhythms of the Night’. In 2005, he was engaged as a Cinema Consultant and played a key role in the launch of Silverbird Cinemas, with the target of creating and developing a cinema culture. Furthermore, he was given the responsibility – as part of a 3-man quality control team – to launch Silverbird TV in the same year. Between 2007 and 2010, Shola worked as Talent Manager, Nigeria for MTVbase Africa with the main responsibility of critiquing and fixing videos submitted for broadcast to their head office in South Africa, as well as selecting top Nigerian artistes to be featured on the Viacom platform. As a Broadcaster, Shola currently works at Smooth 98.1FM, and at Wedding Channel Africa as a TV host for the show – Bar Room Therapy. A full time Film consultant, he reads potential scripts before the next phase of production and screens film projects before their final exports. He critics movies weekly on the Beardface Film show once a week on YouTube and on his Instagram page and also features every Friday on Silverbird Television for their film segment spoiler alert as an in-house movie critic. To his credit, he wrote, directed and edited the DSTV movie “SEE” for the Africa Magic Showcase. He also has to his credit two short films and a Web series – Lucky Number 7, Max and Pillow Talk respectively. Shola is currently running a podcast titled ‘The Movie Business Podcast’ for the Production Company called Talent-X Africa and is also consulting for ARM pensions to produce a Vodcast (Video Podcast) titled “This Is Why You’re Broke”.

Mr. Ayodeji Sunday Adesina is a certified public relations practitioner, journalist, editor, strategist, and a media trainer. He is the Public Relations Officer of McPherson University, Seriki Sotayo, Ogun State (a University rated as the 5th Most Efficient University in Nigeria by National Universities Commission in December 2021), and has been responsible for repositioning the Public Relations Department of the University. He graduated from the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication, graduating with Second Class Upper Division in 2011. He later returned to the same Department for his postgraduate studies and earned a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication in January 2016. Adesina had earlier gained academic exposure at the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Adeseun Ogundoyin Campus, Eruwa, where he obtained a National Diploma in Mass Communication. He also holds a Professional Certificate & a Diploma of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) among other professional certifications in Management and Governance. In nearly two decades, Mr. Adesina has participated in several national developmental competitions where he distinguished himself. At various times, he has served as Public & Media Relations Officer for Remkay Consults, Lagos State; X-Image Consulting, Anambra State and PRAB Communication, Lagos State. He is a consultant to the Courier & Logistics Regulatory Department (CLRD) of the Nigerian Postal Service, and several non-governmental organizations in Nigeria. Aside public relations practice, he has edited several publications that centred on politics, economy, history and religion. His works have been featured prominently in the media landscape including but not limited to The News Magazine, The Nation, This Day, National Mirror, and PM newspapers, among others. Mr. Adesina has received few awards for his public relations and journalistic engagements including the 2022 The Nation Newspapers/Coca-Cola Campuslife Entertainment Reporter of the year among others. Adesina who has been described multi-faceted has lectured public relations and media related courses in many tertiary institutions in Nigeria and has contributed to the training of over 800 graduates between 2010 and 2022. He is an infoprenuer and an adjunct lecturer in Department of Mass Communication, McPherson University, Ogun State. He currently sits on the Board of three registered organisations in Nigeria.

Eric Dumo is a multiple award-winning investigative journalist/editor based in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. As a journalist with over 16 years experience working with some of Nigeria’s leading news publications including TheWeek, Scroll, SUN, PUNCH and Sahara Reporters, he has produced several important stories and also covered major events locally and internationally. During this period, many of his reports have not only pushed relevant authorities to act on issues raised, several communities and their inhabitants have had their lives transformed as result of such works. Dumo has won over 12 major journalism awards for the impact and quality of his work during this period as well. In October 2018, he was one of 23 international journalists selected by the United States Department of State to cover the mid-term elections in California and Nevada. He has attended several capacity building trainings within and outside Nigeria over the last five years. In recent times, he has become a regular contributor for scidev.net – a United Kingdom-based publication – and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative) based in Switzerland. In March 2022, Dumo won a scholarship to study journalism masters at the prestigious Columbia University in New York, United States.