Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi (Dipl.-Wirt.Ing., Author, curator, journalist and lecturer for black German literatures, culture and media, MINT - ambassador and diversity coordinator for civil society and Berlin administration.) With her doctoral thesis on gender and anti-racism Perspective, she plans post & decolonial paradigm shifts in the categories of waste management, neo-colonialism and nation. She lectured at universities in Fulda and Göttingen, Hamburg Bremen and Berlin. As president of AFROTAK TV cyberNomads and federal executive of The African Network Germany TANG, she realizes concepts for black and diasporic knowledge productions (educational archive, multimedia lab, online platform). She was the German speaker for the African Union in Paris and for the UN Decade for People of African Descent in Geneva. As a project coordinator, she closes gaps that are not covered in the mainstream (Black Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and Discourse, DOCUMENTA Africana Germanica, Black Media Congress Berlin, National Action Plan against Racism & Ethnic Discrimination Berlin, DaMigra – Women migrant umbrella organisation). As a chosen guarantor deputy she initiates cultural-political inclusion, lobbies and cooperation with institutions such as House of World Cultures HKW, Goethe Institute, Federal Agency for Political Education BPB, Heinrich-Boell-, Friedrich-Ebert- and Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. UNESCO Germany proclaimed in 2004 the co-initiated literature prize as a project to commemorate the slave trade and its abolition (May-Ayim-Award). She was honored by Black Heritage magazine in 2010, 2013 and 2017 as one of the most important Afro-Germans. And the Berlin Senate, the Federal Government and the European Union have repeatedly honored her innovative approaches and interventions into civil society. In 2018 she was selected as a scholarship holder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

I work at the German Development Institute - Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), one of the leading research institutions and think tanks for global development and international development policy worldwide. My work is related to different aspects of evidence in the field of development cooperation: providing evidence, using it, and improving its potential

Dr. Marissa Kaloga’s research focuses on women’s innovative economic strategies to support family and community in resource poor contexts. Through her research with women in Asia, Africa, and the US she has developed new knowledge about women’s labor and economic strategies in vulnerable and marginalized populations such as sex workers, refugees, and women in extreme poverty. Dr. Kaloga holds a PhD in Social Work from the Ohio State University with a specialization in Global Health. She has an MSW in Community and Social Justice and Bachelor’s Degrees in International Studies (B.A.) and Business Administration (B.S.). Dr. Kaloga is Director of Innovation and Training at The Economic and Community Development Institute. In this role she is uses knowledge developed in her research to design programs that support entrepreneurs across Ohio, focusing on women, minorities, and refugees. As recipient of the 2018/2019 Core Fulbright award to Guinea, she will spend the upcoming academic year based out of Sonfonia University’s LARSODED lab in the College of Social Sciences, teaching Economic Justice and leading research on creating inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems. Dr. Kaloga has taught Social Science Research Methods, Race Ethnicity & Gender, Social Welfare, Interdisciplinary Healthcare, Global Perspectives on Sexuality, and International Social Work. She is a two time recipient of the Edward J. Ray Award for Scholarship and Exceptional Service and is the recipient of the Merriss Cornell Research Award.

Researcher with German Development Institute on the interaction between socio-environmental policies and outcomes