Keynote Panel: Eyes on Sudan

Khalid Albaih is a Sudanese political cartoonist and human rights advocate known for his global platform, Khartoon. The 2025 Artist-in-Residence at Georgetown University in Qatar, his work has been exhibited internationally, and his writings have appeared in major publications. He was featured in The Guardian’s documentary The Story of Civil Rights is Unfinished (2016) and has published two books: Khartoon! and Sudan Retold, an art book documenting Sudan’s history through 31 Sudanese artists. His installations, such as Bahar and The Walls Have Ears (Documenta 15), address themes of displacement and social justice. In 2024, he hosted Alhasil Shino? on AJ+ and serves as editor-in-chief of KhartoonMag.com, a platform for displaced Sudanese cartoonists. He is also the creator of the award-winning @DohaFashionFridays.

Zeinab Badawi has a long broadcast career that includes an epic 20 part BBC TV series on the history of Africa, now available on BBC YouTube – The History of Africa with Zeinab Badawi, and programs such as HardTalk. She holds several positions, including President of SOAS, and is a member of the high-level group of the Africa-Europe Foundation, the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Royal Opera House. She is a member of the advisory boards of Afro-Barometer and MINDS – the Mandela Institute for Development Studies, and sits on the Council of the UK’s Arts, Humanities and Research Council, the International Crisis Group, and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. She has received many awards, such as Broadcaster of the Year, awarded by the Association of International Broadcasters, the Sir Brian Urquhart Award for distinguished service to international journalism and the UN, the British Academy’s President’s Medal for services to international broadcasting and female education and the Royal African Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award for services to Africa. Her book, An African History of Africa, was published in April 2024 and became an instant bestseller, reaching the number one slot in The Sunday Times best hardback non-fiction category.

Rashid Diab is a Sudanese multidisciplinary artist, art historian, and author of Visual Arts in Sudan (2025). He founded the Dara Art Gallery and the Rashid Diab Cultural Centre but was forced to abandon the institution and personal art collection due to the outbreak of the war in Sudan in 2023. Despite having to flee to Madrid without his work, he has since held new exhibitions in Beirut, Lisbon, and Madrid. 

Nesrine Malik is a Sudanese author and journalist known for her wide-ranging commentary on issues of race, identity, politics, and international affairs. Her book We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent (2019) critiques the narrative foundations of increasingly intolerant and authoritarian politics in Britain and the United States, exploring how once-fringe views have gone mainstream. Her columns in leading outlets, including the Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post, address topics ranging from Islamophobia and feminism to African politics, with deep insights into the ways colonial and postcolonial legacies shape our contemporary world. She received the 2021 Robert B. Silvers Prize for Journalism.

Safwan M. Masri is the Dean of Georgetown University in Qatar and a Distinguished Professor of the Practice at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Before joining Georgetown in October 2022, Professor Masri served as Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University and was a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to that, he held the position of Vice Dean and Professor at Columbia Business School, and previously taught engineering at Stanford University. He was also a visiting professor at INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires). Dean Masri is the author of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (Columbia University Press, 2017). He is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an honorary fellow of the Foreign Policy Association. He is the founding chairman of King’s Academy and Queen Rania Teacher Academy in Jordan. Currently, he serves as a trustee of International College in Beirut and is a director of AMIDEAST and Endeavor Jordan.