Rachid ID YASSINE is a lecturer at Gaston Berger University. He holds a phD from EHESS (Paris) and is a visiting professor at Sciences Po Lyon. He also taught from 2007 to 2015 at the University of Perpignan, and since 2015 has been teaching at the University of Saint-Louis in Brussels. Co-founder and deputy director of LASPAD, he is the main coordinator of Global Africa. A sociologist and anthropologist, he is responsible for the Master's degree in the social sciences of religions and also supervises several doctorates at the Center for the Study of Religion (UGB, UFR CRAC). His research work focuses on contemporary religion, human security, conflicts and war crimes, democracy and youth, digital technology and artificial intelligence. He is an international consultant and expert, member of various scientific associations, and editor and author of several articles, reports and books.

Doctor in political science (University of Bordeaux 1), habilitation to direct research (University of Bordeaux 1), associate professor of political science, teacher-researcher at the Faculty of Economic and Legal Sciences (Abdou Moumouni University, Niamey), full professor of CAMES.

Researcher with experience working in the higher education sector. Expertise in Educational Technology, Instructional Design, Curriculum Development, Teacher Education and Distance Learning. Strong research professional with a UTICEF Master's degree in the Use of ICT for Teaching and Training from Louis Pasteur University (Strasbourg I), Master's degree in Educational Research and PhD in Educational Technology from Laval University (Quebec-Canada).

Born in 1941, and with both French and Nigerien nationality, Jean Pierre Olivier De Sardan is Director of Research Emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and Director of Studies (Professor) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France). He is an associate professor at the Abdou Moumouni University in Niamey (Niger). He is one of the founders of LASDEL (Laboratory of Studies and Research on Social Dynamics and Local Development) in Niamey, an internationally recognized social science laboratory, to which he has directed many research programs and to which he is still attached. He is a graduate of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, has a degree in sociology from the Sorbonne, a post-graduate degree in anthropology, and a doctorate in anthropology. He is also Knight of the Academic Palms of the Republic of Niger, Knight of the Legion of Honor of the French Republic, Doctor honoris causa of the University of Liege, holder of the Ester Boserup Prize for Research on Development 2014 (University of Copenhagen). He has directed some 40 doctoral theses. He has published numerous works on various dimensions of West African societies: on social structures and history in Niger, development, health, corruption, local authorities and electoral processes. Two of his books have become reference works: Anthropology and Development and The Rigor of Qualitative. They are often used in French-speaking universities (France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and West Africa) and are both among the top ten best-selling books of their respective publishers.

Mame Penda Ba, a professor and researcher at the Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis, is the first woman to hold a university agrégation in political science in Senegal. She was special advisor to the Rector and Deputy Director of the Law and Political Science Department. She is the director of the Research Laboratory on Societies and Powers in Africa and the Diaspora (LASPAD) and is the Executive Secretary of the African Studies Association for Africa (ASAA). She is a member of several international research networks and her work covers the sociology of religion, the analysis of public action (Education, Health, Gender, Decentralization, Security) as well as the recompositions of the State in Africa. She is also editor of the journal Global Africa and co-editor of the blog CIHA (Critical Investigations into Humanitarianism in Africa).

Dr. Thiam is a graduate of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. He received his M.A. in French from the University of Provence in France and his M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from Binghamton University in New York. Earlier in his career, he was an associate professor of African American Studies, African Studies, and French at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Return to the Kingdom of Childhood: Re-envisioning the Legacy and Philosophical Relevance of Negritude (Ohio State University Press, 2014). Dr. Thiam has also served as editor of Negritude Reloaded, a special issue of the Journal on African Philosophy, associate editor of Research in African Literatures, and has published numerous articles in literature and philosophy journals such as Ethiopiques, West Africa Review, La Revue Africaine, La Revue du Graat, French Review, Research in African Literature, Dalhousie French Review, and Journal on African Philosophy. He recently completed the manuscript of a second book, "Epistemologies from the South: Negritude, Modernity, and the Idea of Africa. Dr. Thiam was also the Academic Dean for Africa South of the Sahara at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he directed one of the largest portfolios of programs in Africa of any American institution.