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Dr Aida Al-Kaisy is a media development consultant and academic researcher who has worked extensively on media projects across the Global South and Central Eastern Europe. She is currently working on projects which focus on issues related to the development of independent media, media and journalism in countries where freedom of expression is challenged, and gender and human rights. She teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies and is the co-founder of Iraqi independent media platform, Jummar. Aida is a keen promoter of ethical values in journalistic practice and media governance.

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Aleksandar-Birovljev

Leading regional expert in domain of e-commerce, e-payment solutions and digital business planning for various clients, including the biggest media publishers in the region (Axel Springer, United group), biggest acquiring banks, e-commerce merchants, betting online companies and online retailers. Mr. Birovljev is a pioneer in e-commerce and e-payments. He developed and launched first online shopping mall, first classifieds online portal, implemented some of the market-changing e-payment features (card tokenization, one-click-payments, etc.). More than 2.000 business models were evaluated by Mr.Birovljev in period while he was head of e-commerce in largest regional bank and in years aftewards. In Serbia he closely worked with USAID media project to provide technical assistance to media stakeholders in developing a more enabling business environment for media. Working on improving regulatory legislative and economic environment for media, with specific concentration on optimizing online payments as a basis for enhancing digital business models for media. He specifically worked with Beta agency (payment solution), daily Danas (digital subscription), Nova Ekonomija (e-business and e-payment consulting), Foundation Catalyst (creating innovative payment infrastructure for servicing media Pescanik, KRIK, CINS and Fakenews).

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Aleksandar-Manasiev

Aleksandar Manasiev is an award-winning journalist from North Macedonia with more than 17 years of experience in print media, TV and digital media. He has experience as an investigative journalist, correspondent and editor in chief in several media outlets in the region and beyond. He also works as a regional trainer for mobile journalism, digital media and investigative journalism.

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Aleksandra Radivojević is a digital media expert working on the crossroad where technology and journalism meet. She has more than 7 years of experience in working with media, advertising, consulting publishers, and educating newsrooms in the field of data analytics. Aleksandra started her career as a Marketing Manager at satirical news portal Njuz.net, she worked as a social media manager for a large publishing group, and currently, she is working as a Senior Operations Manager for data analytics service provider – smartocto. At smartocto, she is leading a team of consultants, dedicated to helping and supporting small and local media outlets in their growth to sustainable business.

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Almir Peštek is an experienced strategist, business support consultant, with two decades of engagement in business, start up, innovation and entrepreneurship sectors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Western Balkans and beyond. Expert combines highly sophisticated knowledge on economic trends, entrepreneurial approach and strategic planning skills that are applicable to the media development sector, especially in the domain of planning their business. He worked with more than 20 different media outlets to foster their strategic planning and support capacity building in domains of business and cost-efficient operation.

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Anastasiia Shevchenko, Operations Editor at The Fix Media

Anastasiia is a media analyst focused on disinformation, partisan media, and media literacy. Before joining The Fix, she worked as a communications manager, fact-checker and media researcher. Anastasiia has also been a Fulbright Fellow, doing research on information wars at the University of Kansas.

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Andrijana Tasevska has more than a decade of experience in organizational and business development, by providing tailored mentoring and capacity-building support to a variety of actors including media. The fields of her primary expertise include Strategic Planning, Change Management, Human Resource Strategies for both the private and public sector. Her reicent focus is on an online local or regional media sector and industry in the Western Balkans.

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Anisa Curraj is project officer of Thomson Foundation’s component of the FCDO-backed Supporting Greater Media Independence programme in the Western Balkans. She is experienced in management and human resources with a portfolio interlinking academia with the business sector and project development in civil society and media. She is an external lecturer of entrepreneurship at the Professional College of Tirana and provides ongoing support to Tech360 Smart Solutions and project assistance to Centre Science and Innovation for Development (Scidev). She graduated at the University Politeknik in Tirana, Albania, and completed two MA programmes – MSc in Business and Administration at the European University of Tirana, Albania, and MA in Business Administration, Management and Operation at the Ludwigshafe University, Rhenald-Pfalz in Germany.

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Arta Xhelili is experienced mentor and communication expert, with strong academic background and business orientation. She is specialized in domains of communication, business and professional communication, organizational communication, public relations and marketing. Her strong mentorship skills and commitment to the mentorship processes and result-oriented approach qualified her to work with media outlets in North Macedonia.

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Asya Metodieva follows political and media developments in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. She is currently involved in a project on digital sovereignty in Europe at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, where she works as a researcher. Additionally, she is a visiting fellow with the Engaging Central Europe program of The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Asya earned her PhD from Central European University for her research on the radicalization and mobilization of radical and extremist movements. Her book on foreign Islamist fighters from the Balkans was published by Routledge in 2023. Previously, she was a fellow with Visegrád Insight (2020), Re-Think CEE (2019), and LSE Ideas (2018). She is currently engaged at the Thomson Foundation as a Media Support Coordinator.

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Biljana-Martinic

Biljana Martinić has written over 200 published articles and critiques of music, films and TV series in which she analyzed the influence of popular culture on the development of character, gender and racial equality as well as environmental protection. She has worked as a social media manager (she has managed various brands on social networks) and is now working as a content writer (creator of web content) for blogs and websites. She is one of the founders of the NGO “Leadership Academy” whose goals are protectio of human rights and freedoms and the implementation of best European practices and policies in various areas of social life, as well as encouraging activism and improving the level of democratization of Montenegrin society. She volunteered as a mentor at the UNICEF Innovation Laboratory for Youth, where she worked on creating sustainable solutions to the most urgent challenges young people are dealing with.

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Blerjana Bino has an outstanding experience in assessing media landscapes in the Western Balkans (with specific focus on Albania) and informing donor’s support in delivering evidence-based and practical programs for media. She is specialized in communication for empowerment and social inclusion and is experienced in provision of mentoring to CSO media and other informal and formal groups. She leads a network of outstanding scholars and policy researchers working on democratic development, good governance, media and communication, research to society and digital transformation (Center Science and Innovation for Development).

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Catherine-Mackie

Catherine Mackie is responsible for designing training programmes for Thomson Foundation. She has more than 30 years of experience as a senior journalist, most of it with the BBC – both in front of and behind the camera. She spent five years as a digital video specialist having led a pilot programme which included devising and delivering a country-wide training programme for BBC staff on digital storytelling and editing. In 2018, she was awarded a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship by the University of Michigan where she developed ways to increase social diversity in news output and connect with new and underserved audiences. Catherine is an examiner for the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.

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Dafina Beqiri has over 18 years of professional experience in organizational, strategic development and change management. Throughout her career, she worked closely with various media stakeholders in Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia and Western Balkans region. She has extensive knowledge about media and communication needs in the region since she has been leading numerous initiatives (such as the one with the Council of Europe) related to the promotion of freedom of expression and press with a focus on dialogue and reconciliation in the Balkans. Her cross-cultural and international experiences enhanced her natural leadership skills and enabled her to become a great mentor and coach on different topics that require support in organizational development, intercultural dialogue and leadership.

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Dalibor Pokec

Dalibor Pokec is a contracted creative director at the Croatian public television (HRT), in charge of the visual layout of the HRT’s main news programme. This includes the creation of innovative designs, development of creative projects, along with management and cooperation between all aspects involved in production. He is involved in creating and producing visual elements for stories and programmes, and managing a team for VizRT system-based augmented reality real-time 3d live television graphics.
Dalibor has been working in broadcast media for the last 16 years. Since then, he has worked on various projects, such as the Olympics, The Voice, and others, as video editor, camera operator, promo producer, graphics editor-in-chief, 3d designer and motion designer. He is also a certified mobile journalism trainer, freelance videographer, and musician.

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Danilo Barjaktarevic

Holds bachelor degree in Business and Auditing. During his career he focused on IT services, Customer support, Software as a service, SW deployment, business operations and profiled himself as senior executive with strong financial and business acumen. He was in charge and face of multiple projects, deployments and delivery with customers in area of Retails, Telco and Finance. With over 12 years of experience, he was engaged in small to medium size businesses, and with high focus on enterprises. He enjoys working in non-government sector, supporting entities in need.

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David Tvrdon

David Tvrdon is a tech and media journalist and podcaster with a marketing background (and degree).

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Davor is Thomson’s Central Europe and South East Europe programme manager. He is actively involved in designing, running and overseeing programmes in this region.

He has extensive experience in media development and supports media capacity development, digital operation and innovations, content production and revenue diversification. Davor also participates in communication with media development community, including donors, media development organisations, and start up and tech actors. He holds PhD in media and communication and he is also a non-resident research fellow at the CEU’s Center for Media, Data and Society in Budapest.

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Dejan Oblak is teaching and research assistant at the Department of Journalism & Media Production, University of Zagreb. He is a PhD student at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. His research interests are innovation in multimedia storytelling with emphasis on emerging formats such as infographics and animation in journalism. He has more then 10 years of experience working in the media and in education of students and media profesionals. He has provided multimedia and convergent journalism trainings and workshops in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania working on OSCE and and Internews projects. He is also a freelance motion designer and video editor.

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Communication person by experience and activist by choice, Diana Filimon coordinates civic and journalistic projects for young people in Romania for over 6 years through the NGO she funded, Forum Apulum. Gen, știri and Gen, revistă, two of their many projects, are some of the main sources of information for young Romanians. Diana is also a trainer on media literacy, storytelling communication and community building and a team member of DCN Global.

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dina

Dina joined the CINS investigative team in mid-2017. She predominantly covers environmental topics, and stories about aviation, arms trade and energy. Dina won several national and international awards for investigative stories concerning ecological issues. For a series of stories about air pollution problems in the country, she won first place at the EU Award for Investigative Journalism in 2021. In 2019 Dina won several national and international awards for investigative stories related to small hydropower plants in Serbia – the Award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism handed by the South East Europe Media Organization (SEEMO), the Central European Initiative (CEI), the EU Investigative Journalism Award; a special merit award within the National Awards for Excellence in Investigative Journalism handed by the Independent Journalists’ Association and the U.S. Embassy. She also won the 2018 Marina Kovačev award for best younger journalist under 30 in Serbia, given by the Novi Sad School of Journalism.

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Diturije-Ismaili

Diturie Ismaili is experienced mentor and research expert, with strong academic background and business orientation. She is specialized in domains of resource management, strategic management, and public policies and leadership. Her strong mentorship skills and commitment to the mentorship processes and result-oriented approach qualified her to work with media outlets in North Macedonia.

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Dominique Thierry is a senior media development programme manager with over 30 years of international experience as journalist and media manager. He worked in media outlets based in Scotland, then in Brussels and the Balkans, while currently, he works in Paris. He provided mentorship and significant peer to peer in-house coaching to a variety of media outlets in Serbia, BiH, Kosovo, Albania, as well as in the EU Neighbourhood, South and East and in Africa. In the Balkans, he strategically advised Beta News Agency, Radio Television Serbia, Ateliers Varan, Albanian Telegraphic Agency and Radio Tirana, Radio Bobar and RTV Crna Gora, RTV Vojvodina, etc. For 17 years, he held managerial and journalistic positions in the print press and radio with Radio France and Radio France Internationale. He has been running large scale projects coordinating multi-ethnic, multicultural, multilingual teams.

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Dusan-Masic

Dušan Mašić is in journalism from 1989. He is one of the founders and journalists of Serbian Radio B92 and was the first director of ANEM – Association of Independent Electronic Media. Since 2007 he works in BBC as a Busines Development Manager and ever since he has developed, maintained and enhanced multi-platform business development activities in Europe, Middle East and West Asia for BBC World Service. This includes prospecting and account management, acquiring, maintaining and developing partnerships with web portals, mobile phone operators, aggregators and ISPs, radio, TV stations & cable operators. He has been working directly with media outlets in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania and specialised in providing consultancy for integration and creation of convergent newsrooms.

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Elira Canga has worked as a journalist and editor in Albania for 11 years. She is now working at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe media project manager aiming to modernize the public service media in her country and enriching the journalism curriculum. She has previously worked as journalist and producer for the BBC and as a Media Team Leader at USAID. Elira is experienced in media development and international affairs. She has spent ten years working on media development to encourage investigative reporting and fact-checking, as well as training and mentoring young journalists on media and information literacy and countering disinformation online. During 2021-2022, she is pursuing her Humphrey Fellowship, part of Fulbright program, at Arizona State University, USA.

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Emir Kurtić is an assistant professor of management disciplines in higher education with School of Economics and Business in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has conducted various marketing and business research projects and feasibility studies for a plethora of industries as a management consultant to some of the leading companies in BiH. Emir has a strong focus on social entrepreneurship and creating a sustainable business that serves the local community. With his skills and business development experience, he is able to provide mentorship for media outlets helping them to set their business directions and test new business models and strategies.

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Ejron Curraj is a leading expert in business development, innovation, and digital transformation towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He avails of a blended professional experience in academia, the public and private sectors (Triple Helix), and has been recently awarded with the EU Jean Monnet Module grant by the European Commission for promoting EU digital agenda in Albania. His long term experience, knowledge and skills in working with the public, private and start-up sector made possible the established connections all across the Western Balkan region, which are highly relevant for the TF intervention. He is now acting as a mentor for Thomson Foundation, supporting media outlets to develop business plans and become more financially sustainable.

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Eva Vajda is a former Hungarian award-winning investigative reporter who covered corruption, wrongdoings and misuse of power for almost two decades. She is currently based in London, working for Thomson Foundation as a trainer and mentor in media development projects. Prior to that, she worked as a regional researcher for Amnesty International. She ran journalism workshops both online and offline in all over the region and in the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Russia and Belarusia. She taught journalism in a Budapest university for more than a decade and is an author of Hungarian investigative reporting books and storybooks. She studied economics and law in Budapest, journalism in the US and at the BBC and she also holds a CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner) degree.

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Fat Chilli is a Slovakian-based company that helps media publishers fully understand their readers, identify new opportunities for growth and maximise their results with innovative and effective solutions.

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Feđa Kulenović is an information and communication expert engaged in research and practice in the field of data science, information science, knowledge management and communication with a special focus on network communication and public presentation. He cooperates as a consultant with many government bodies, non-governmental organizations and the business sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in the region. A special focus of his work is on the use of web analytics and data in the media. He is a senior assistant at the Department of Information Sciences at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo in the field of information sciences.

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Galjina is an established scholar, mentor and business oriented consultant with an excellent track of records related to the media industry. She is specialized in media measurement, developing industrial standards in the domain of media business, and supporting professional media associations and media outlets in business capacity development. She used to work with the Association of Media in Serbia, USAID SMS project and main industry players on the Serbian market (media publishers, marketing and media buying agencies, advertisers) on developing industry standards/market currency in the domain of media measurement.

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Ilcho Cvetanoski is the community management and communications expert for Thomson Foundation’s segment of the FCO-funded programme, Supporting Greater Media Independence in the Western Balkans. He is an experienced journalist with more than 15 years of experience working for several local and international media organisations. Before joining the Thomson Foundation team, Ilcho worked as a media analyst for several NGOs and IGOs. He has master’s degree in democracy and human rights from the University of Bologna and Sarajevo and a BA in journalism from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. He is fluent in Macedonian, English, and BCMS (Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian).

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Ivan Minić is a marketing and IT professional with international experience. He is the founder of one of the biggest online communities in the Balkan region counting more than 2 million users (Burek forum) and a self-made entrepreneur with several businesses launched (Moja Pijaca, Burgos – burger bar). Ivan is the host and editor of Pojačalo – a podcast about entrepreneurship that reaches up to 5.000 subscribers. Ivan has worked with media outlets from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, helping them to develop their online presence and grow their audiences. He taught Project Management for students of Digital marketing at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Belgrade.

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Jasmina Selimović is an associate professor of finance and a Dean of School of Economics and Business in Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has been working as a consultant for World Bank and other international organizations with special focus on financial management, business development and education strategies. She is an active researcher in the field of financial management and is able to support the media outlets in their efforts to re-organize their finances and test new business models.

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Jelena is media support and MEL coordinator of the Thomson’s component of the FCO-backed Supporting Greater Media Independence programme in the Western Balkans. She is a journalist, communications and marketing professional, with extensive experience in international development and the media sector. Jelena provides direct assistance to the media outlets in the Western Balkans region, with a special focus on supporting innovative initiatives through business planning, audience engagement and the introduction of new online channels and content formats. Prior to Thomson Foundation, she worked for the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), Serbian National Internet Domains Registry (RNIDS), NGO Civic Initiatives, and volunteered as part of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) community.

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Jernej Verbič is an expert on journalism, media production, and entrepreneurship in the domains of communication and branding. He has 20 years of experience working as an editor and reporter at RTV Slovenia public broadcaster; biggest commercial television in Slovenia, POP TV and daily Delo, a New York City correspondent for daily Dnevnik; and a project and development manager at the Slovene Association of Journalists. Currently, he is a Managing Partner of the brand newsroom Dobre zgodbe, mostly working as a consultant on newsroom branding, business storytelling, digital media content, and strategy development to various media outlets in the Western Balkans.

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Jeton Mehmeti is an experienced media professional, consultant and research expert with more than a decade of professional engagement in supporting media business, innovative media ideas, media capacity assessment. He worked with numerous media organizations in Kosovo and WB region and supported them in domains of strategic planning, management transformation and community building.

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Journalift is an online resource platform with state-of-the-art hands-on practices and knowledge for people who want to know more about media development, media business and the newest trends in the media industry. It has been designed as a knowledge hub focused on the media outlets needs.
We see ourselves as ‘game changers’, in the media development community that bring new ideas, innovative tools and result-based approaches to media businesses operation.

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Kaltrina Ajeti is a PhD Candidate in Media Psychology. Since 2009 she is working as a Journalist and Editor in Chief for Public Television of Kosovo (RTK). Additionally, she serves as Executive Director of Kosovar Institute for Media and Communication (IKMK), an NGO that has implemented many projects across Western Balkans. In 2013 she was engaged as a Teaching Assistant and later as a Lecturer at the University of Pristina and other private Collages.  She works for numerous governmental institutions and significant international organizations in the region as an external expert for media and networking.

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Klodiana Kapo leads the organization “Faktoje” which provides fact-finding services since 2019. She assumed this position after three years of experience as Public Relations and Communication Manager at the international children’s organization World Vision, where she was recently awarded the “Global Brand Award” by the global office. Mrs. Kapo comes to “Faktoje” after a 16-year career in the most popular media outlets in the country where she has reported mainly on social issues and more specifically on the education system, health, youth development, etc. During her career, Mrs. Kapo has worked as a journalist at Top Channel (where she counts dozens of documentaries and personal stories), has had her weekly column in the newspaper “Shqip”, and has worked as editor-in-chief at the Albanian Public Television. Klodiana also counts a series of successful awareness campaigns for local and international non-governmental organizations and is a co-author of two books.

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Kristijan Jean Radikovič is a seasoned wordsmith with a master’s degree in English and a soft spot for poetry. After a freelance career as a translator, interpreter and proof-reader, he worked as a copywriter for an international crypto exchange. With the experience he had gained, he found his place at the Dobre zgodbe brand newsroom, where he conducts research and writes copy for local and global brands.

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Kristina Ozimec is an investigative journalist from Skopje and president of the Platform for Investigative Journalism and Analyses – PINA. She is also Head organizer of the Media Festival Skopje.

She is specialized in covering different areas like politics, corruption, rule of law, human rights, civil society and education. Ozimec has won multiple awards for her investigative stories and has been commended for her professional coverage of issues concerning the marginalized communities and human rights.

She has conducted training sessions and lectures about investigative journalism and media. She is a coordinator of two programs in PINA – Program for women journalists and Program for mobile journalism, and a coordinator of the program – Young Journalists Network. Kristina is a journalism graduate of Iustinianus Primus Faculty of Law in Skopje.

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Lamija has been working as a journalist and editor for many years. She was the Executive Producer of Aljazeera Balkans in charge of launching the regional project and the director of the Information Media Service at the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT), where she has been working on its reorganization to integrate the work processes of radio, television and portals. As an external associate, she has been teaching TV journalism at the Croatian Studies at the University of Zagreb. She has educated herself in the United States (University of Tennessee and University of Texas El Paso) and is an alumna of the Academy for Political Development of the Council of Europe. She has gained professional experience in the start-up world of Silicon Valley as well. In recent years, she has been working as a media consultant on various regional projects.

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Ljiljana Pecova has long-term working experience in public administration, working as a PR Manager. She is part of the start-up community in the country and pays specific attention to bring forward innovative models for business and operations. She works in the sphere of adult education, building capacities, training need assessment, research, analysis, and evaluation. Latest working experiences have brought numerous workshops with the media upgrading their capacity in the area of using the internet safety tools. A couple of training were done towards different size media for social media presence and disinformation tools. She has been engaged to draft the first Codex for journalists when reporting about child victims/perpetrators. She is a certified trainer for adults and is a member of the Complaints Commission at the Council of Media Ethics of North Macedonia. Specific areas of interest are the privacy issues, transparency and good governance models based on human rights approaches.

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Lorin Kadiu graduated in Journalism and Communication and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Relations. Since 2018, he is the Executive Director of the Citizens Channel media NGO based in Tirana. He specializes in multimedia production, working as a producer for several documentaries, podcast series and visual investigations. During the past 8 years he has worked as a journalist, multimedia trainer and consultant on media literacy with local and international partners.  

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Maja Ledjenac is a journalist from Vojvodina, Serbia. She worked with some of the most prominent editorials throughout the Balkans, such as Radio slobodna Evropa and Beta news agency. She collaborated with other different media outlets among which are weekly newspaper Vreme, BIRN and Public broadcasting Service of Vojvoidna, where she was a journalist at youth Oradio and started working with young journalists and raising their skills. Besides this, her passion and main field of work is digital content creation and filmography, with several documentary movies behind her, and one award for the movie filmed entirely on mobile phone (mojo). Today she is working as a media consultant and mentor in the field of digital content production, audience engagement and innovative media business ideas.

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Maja Vasić-Nikolić worked at the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia from 2006 to 2021. During her work at IJAS Maja coordinated the Association’s projects and advocacy efforts related to increasing safety of journalists and levels of media freedoms in Serbia and, through Association regional projects, the Western Balkans.

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Marko Moračić is a professional organizational development expert with over 15 years of management experience including HR, training, organizational and management development and coaching. He is a co-founder and a senior trainer, coach and consultant at HUBChe – a company that provides entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship capacity building services. Moračić has provided direct support to several local media portals from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also worked with news agencies and a national newspaper company in business development and product planning. This gave him the opportunity to specialise in financial assessment and advisory for the media industry with a strong focus on restructuring media portals, management in media companies and establishing HR policies and performance management.

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Media-for-All-logo (1)

Twelve teams of three young journalists from at least two different countries from the Western Balkans worked over the course of eight weeks, with the support of experienced mentors, to produce regional stories focused on youth. This story was developed through the Media for All programme funded by the UK Government. The content gathered and views expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors.

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Mihailo has over 20 years of experience in sales and advertising, digital marketing, big data, loyalty and eCommerce. He’s currently holding the position of Chief eCommerce Officer at Tehnomanija d.o.o. For the last 12 years he’s been working in various industries – as Chief Revenue Officer at Euronews Serbia, Chief Executive Officer at Super Kartica and Advertising Sales Director of Media Impact at Ringier Axel Springer. He’s also a Board Member of IAB Serbia and Ecommerce Association of Serbia. Holds trainings in programmatic buying, email marketing and marketing automation.

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Mihajlo Lahtov is an experienced media and communication expert with extensive working experience in this field in various types of organizations, from small local CSOs to big international organizations. He also works as a Consultant and Trainer for Media Development, Media Literacy and Communications for more than 10 years. He held more than 100 workshops and trainings for: OSCE, Macedonian Institute for Media, NDI, Institute for Communication Studies, GIZ, Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services in Macedonia, and others. Currently, he works as Communication Officer at the German Development Agency – GIZ.

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Milena Đukić

Milena Đukić works as a Communications Manager with experience in public relations management, digital marketing, community management and video production. She is primarily actively engaged with creative industries, cultural and artistic production and the non-governmental sector with organizations such as Sigurna ženska kuća (Safe house for women), FIAT International Alternative Theater Festival, Podgorica Film Festival, UnderhillFest and production companies such as OpenBox, Atomic and Videa.

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Miloš Katić is an award-winning investigative journalist and financial forensics expert from Serbia with ten years of experience in media. He is specialized in the field of investigative journalism, business development, financial management, AML/TF, digital and financial forensics. He also works as a consultant for business development and finance. 

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Miloš Stanić

Miloš Stanić is a former award-winning journalist. He is interested in new technologies, and he has been working for several years at the crossroads of journalism and technology, in the technology startup Smartocto, where he’s engaged with strategy and work with clients. Before joining Smartocto, Europe’s leading producer of analytical tools for digital media, Miloš was a journalist for “Blic” for several years. During his journalistic career, he collaborated with the Vojvodina Research and Analytical Center of the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina, and worked on KRIK and BIRN projects. He has participated in the Balkans Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, and was awarded the European Union Prize for Investigative Reporting in Serbia, awarded in 2019, for the text created during the fellowship program.

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Mladen Obrenović is PhD in Communication Science and a professional journalist, professional career as a journalist back in 1996, working for the next 14 years for local media covering the eastern part of Croatia. He moved to a position of a correspondent (form Vukovar) for newspapers Glas Slavonije and Jutarnji list. From 2010 to 2013, he took the position with web portal Tportal, based in Zagreb, where he covers daily politics and actual themes of the Croatian society, specializing in covering Croatian Assembly and Government as well as institutions of the law. In 2013 he started working for Al Jazeera Balkans in Sarajevo, as a journalist and from 2019, as a news editor. Since August 2020, he has been working as a journalist in Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH). From October 2017 to September 2018, he was an assistant lecturer at VERN University in Zagreb, teaching the Theories of Media. He took part in numerous media courses, scientific conferences and as a result, he published numerous scientific studies. He is a member of the Advisory Group for Promoting Media and Information Literacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Nataša-Kovačev

Natasa Kovačev – a reporter with 15 years of experience in television journalism. Currently, I am a correspondent from Vojvodina working for Euronews Serbia. Previously I have worked for N1 television, Al Jazeera Balkans, RTV Vojvodina. Covered stories from local politics, economics, to US presidential elections in 2016, Ukrainian crises, mass protests in Romania, the aftermath of bomb attacks in Brussels and Ankara, the refugee crisis in Europe, military coup attempt in Turkey, many different demonstrations throughout the Balkan countries.

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Nataša Laković Đukanović is a strategy consultant based in Belgium. She helps growing companies in developing their go-to-market and growth strategies as well as in implementing them. Nataša is a mentor in the Thomson Foundation project “Media for all” and two cohorts of the EIC Women Leadership Programme. 

Previously she was a CMO of Domain.ME, the international tech company that operates the internet domain “.ME.” She is one of the key people that impacted the development of the digital and startup community of Montenegro, the co-founder of Digitalizuj.Me, an NGO that examines the transformative power of technology through various projects and lectures, and Spark.me, one of the biggest tech/business conferences in Southeast Europe.

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Nedim Dervišbegović is a versatile journalist with a long-time experience in content creation and web portals management. He worked as a multimedia producer for the Balkan Service of Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), responsible for online, multimedia, and social networks and has blogged and written articles for RFE/RL’s English page on Balkan politics and other topics. He also worked on a series of documentaries on Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Al Jazeera network as a researcher. Earlier, he worked for ten years as a Reuters’ senior correspondent from Bosnia. He is certified as a trainer by the European Journalism Centre/Reuters Foundation and has held training courses and workshops on news and online writing, multimedia storytelling and investigative reporting. Nedim holds BSc in Politics and International relations from the University of London.

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Nikola Jovanović is a people-oriented advisor for personal, team and organizational development, trainer and researcher with 20 years of experience in all three sectors. Most recently he puts a special focus and attention in his work to digital transformation, the future of HR and Learning functions and helping organizations navigate in what the greatest thinkers of today call “”the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world””. As part of media development projects, he has provided business development and financial consultancy to national, regional and local media outlets from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, helping them to set their business and long-term strategic goals, test and introduce new revenue streams and grow their audiences. He often shares his thoughts and experience on his blog peckopivo.com, Linkedin and various conferences and events, such are TEDx, Digitalizuj.Me, AIESEC New Leaders Conference, DisruptHR, Digital Summit etc.

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Orkidea Xhaferaj is a knowledge advocate with extensive experience in the public, private and development sector in Albania and the WB6 region. Orkidea also acted as a mentor to youth, media, and small businesses, mostly in Albania, in regard to increasing participation in policy, improving communication and improving internal capacities, and access to finance and sustainability. She has an extensive mentoring and research experience, with Westminster Foundation for Democracy she took part in research on the role of Media and CSOs during crisis in Albania and she also leads an informal network focused on increasing women participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

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Paweł Nowacki is an experienced media and e-commerce market consultant specializing in digital subscriptions and communications. He is the founder of DigitalFlow.pl and partners with international companies such as Flowplayer.com, Piano.io, and Upscore.com. With over three decades of experience in journalism and content creation, Paweł offers consulting and advisory services to numerous high-profile clients. He is a lecturer at the University SWPS in Warsaw and completed postgraduate studies in Sociology in Human Resource Management from the University of Łódź.

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Petko Georgiev is a seasoned media professional with a background in broadcast journalism and media management and 25 years of experience in support for media development in South-eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. With an educational background in international business administration, his professional career has evolved from the broadcast reporter, news editor and presenter to newsroom and station manager and international media management consultant. He is specialized in business management with a focus on addressing the challenges of the digital transition and helping media outlets improve their offer, engage audiences on various platforms and create new sources of revenue.

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Petra Kovacevic is a teaching and research assistant at the Department of Journalism & Media Production, University of Zagreb, and a team member on the research project “Journalism Research Lab”, funded by the Croatian Science Foundation. She is a PhD student at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media & Culture where she studies solutions-focused journalism at the BBC. Her research interests include new journalistic practices, such as constructive journalism and solutions journalism, the culture of newsroom experiments, innovative and interactive journalistic storytelling techniques, journalistic content intended for young audiences, with a special focus on TV and video production. Petra teaches on modules related to television, video and multimedia production. She is also a freelance journalist and producer, and a certified mobile journalism trainer.

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Sanja Beronja has gained ten years of professional experience on projects related to educational management and international cooperation in higher education, as a lecturer and program manager at the Faculty of Sciences Po in Paris. She has developed a passion for innovation in education there nd realized the importance of new technologies in creating educational content. She is currently a PhD researcher in the sociology of entrepreneurship at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. The topic of her doctoral dissertation is start-up entrepreneurship in Paris and Berlin. Sanja sees innovation in education and technological entrepreneurship as drivers of local development and researches and writes about these topics. She lives between Berlin and Paris and is active in those two cities, as well as in her native Belgrade.

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Sanja Gardasevic is the CEO of Alicorn, a digital marketing agency that provides clients with a full range of services related to strategic brand development and managing their online presence. Sanja has extensive experience in designing and conducting workshops and training on digital marketing, as well as providing mentorship support to media companies in developing their online businesses.

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She is community building, crowdfunding and capacity building expert, specialized in work with CSO and mission-led media outlets. She was part of the Catalyst Balkans team, and is in charge of regional crowdfunding platform Donacije.rs. Within the last 3 years she created and implemented numerous crowdfuning capaigns with media outlets such as TV Forum Prijepolje (first locally based crowdfunding capaign), Autonomija from Novi Sad, KRIK and CINS – investigative portals from Serbia, Iz glave – popular podcast show from Kragujevac (donation-based model), Pescanik (membership-based model).

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She is a university professor, established scholar, mentor and marketing-oriented consultant with excellent track of records related to media industry. She is specialized in marketing, international business and developing industrial standards in domain of media business, and supporting professional media association and media outlets in business capacity development. She used to work with the Association of Media in Serbia, USAID SMS project and main industry players on Serbian market (media publishers, marketing and media buying agencies, advertisers) on developing industry standards / market currency in domain of media measurement.

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Selma Boračić-Mršo, graduated from the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo in 2008 and has been a professional journalist at Radio Free Europe until 2021. She worked as an editor of TV and radio shows, and wrote on daily basis for portals-stories, interviews and analysis. She is currently a freelance journalist, dealing with topics that bother most people in B&H.

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Journalist at Mediacentar Sarajevo since January 2022. In 2010, she started working in journalism, when she started to write in magazines Magazine and Red Weekend. In the same year, she started working on the website Source.ba as a video journalist, after which her engagement began at websites Vijesti.ba and 24sata.info. After the launch of television N1, she began working as a journalist in the web newsroom of the said television, where she remained for the next seven years. She graduated in journalism from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo.

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Slađana Lučić has been in TV journalism for more than 20 years, currently holding the position of Deputy News Editor at Al Jazeera English in London. She reported from many regional and worldwide events but also trained and mentored young journalists from the Balkan region on journalistic standards, content production, visual storytelling, and documentary filmmaking. Slađana’s documentary film Little Star Rising was screened at film festivals like Windsor Film Festival (Canada), Tokyo Lift-off, SEE fest Los Angeles, CinEast Luxembourg, Aman International Film Festival.

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Smartocto is a smart editorial analytics system that brings actionable data into the newsroom. Our mission is to optimise storytellers’ output and make it more relevant, impactful and profitable. With crystal clear modular big screens, insightful historical reports, and actionable notifications, we give you the power to go from data to action and optimise for online success, whether that’s impact, engagement or conversion. We come from the newsroom ourselves, so our approach to data is different. Our metrics go far beyond the standard pageviews and other simple metrics, with data on loyalty, true engagement and more, to give you the insights you need to truly connect to your audience. To top it off, smart notifications help to make the right decisions based on your business model. We build our products especially for and together with clients, to answer their wishes and truly support and boost the online publishing industry. Take a look at our innovation lab to see what we’re working on right now.

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Tarik Jusić, PhD, MBA, has been engaged in the implementation of various media development projects and programs in the Western Balkans region in the past two decades. Apart from his work in policy research and project implementation, especially in realm of international media assistance, Tarik has been engaged in a number of consultancy projects, primarily focusing on issues of development of strategic planning and strategic communication capacities in public institutions, media organizations, and CSOs. He was Program Director at the Mediacentar Sarajevo (2002-2011) and Managing Director at the Center for Social Research Analitika from Sarajevo (2010-2020). Since 2019, Tarik works as Lecturer and Guarantor of the study program at the School of Communication and Media, University of New York in Prague, Czech Republic.

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Dr. TENA PERIŠIN, Professor at the Department of Journalism and Media Production at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. A longtime journalist of the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT). She conducted professional development programs at Harvard University and Syracuse University in the US and at the CNN. She was an editor at Radio Free Europe, working as a freelancer for the CNN and other media outlets. She led development projects including the project of digitization of the HRT news program and the launch of the HRT4 news channel. She is a founder and manager of Student Television, and of the first Journalism Research Laboratory in the region. She has won several awards for her journalistic work and the state award for the popularization of science. She is the author of numerous professional and scientific texts, as well as the book “Television News”.

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Toshe Ognjanov is an international multimedia journalist and trainer for mobile and multimedia journalism. Alumni of Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, at Arizona State University. Professional news worker with over two decades of experience in Print, TV and online journalism at news outlets in North Macedonia and United States of America.
Toshe Ognjanov is an experienced trainer in photojournalism, videography, social media management for news media and a certificated trainer for media literacy in visual news products.
Past and current news outlets: Dnevnik, Telegraf.mk, Voice of America.

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Uroš Bogdanović is a radio and podcasting consultant with over 20 years of experience in multimedia and media affairs, and everyday content production. He is the author of a lot of content which you have certainly had the opportunity to hear and see on the Internet. Some of it has won awards. He has held all positions in the radio world – from presenter to program director of a national radio station and project manager aimed at making and organizing new radio stations. He collaborated with the best radio stations in the region. He has been actively involved in podcasting for the last six years, as a coach and a consultant.
Uroš is a well-known lecturer at media conferences across Europe, and the topics he likes to talk about (and what is even more important – they like to listen to him) are related to radio, podcasts and sales. The most famous, world-renowned conferences he spoke at were Radiodays Europe, Medientage and Tell a vision. He is the author of the advanced, “”storyselling”” sales technique “”Little green dragon””, which is used by many sales teams of large companies and the media.
He loves to eat. Various doughs in particular (burek and pizza, not pizza burek). You can find more on his website uros.rs.

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Valon Canhasi is an experienced professional in the social media ecosystem with over a decade of expertise. He currently leads a creative and digital team at Hallakate that specializes in social media marketing and online presence. With his team’s combined services, Valon and his colleagues at Hallakate are capable of delivering creative ideas and concepts that can shape the story businesses want to tell online.

Additionally, he mentors and speaks at various events, such as Startup Weekend, Digital Conferences, Startup Grind, and SMM community. Valon is also proud to be part of #IVLP – The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program.

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Veselin Vačkov is a senior Czech media executive with over 25 years of experience as a journalist and media manager. He is currently the director of the oldest Czech quality broadsheet, LIDOVE NOVINY, and its news site LIDOVKY.CZ. He is also a member of the Supervisory Board of the Czech Publishers’ Association. Previously, he served for nine years as the paper’s editor-in-chief. He started his journalistic career as a foreign correspondent and business reporter.

Veselin has first-hand experience with the digital transformation of legacy media and building integrated multimedia operations. He has in-depth knowledge of the trends that are transforming the industry and a proven command of business planning and media management.

Since 2014, he has worked with The Thomson Foundation as a consultant, providing training and mentoring to editorial and management teams of media organizations in EU Eastern Neighbourhood countries (Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus), the Western Balkans, Bulgaria, and Hungary.

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Vladimir Trkulja is a community organizer and media business planer with a decade of experience in creating, growing and supporting Serbian startup companies through different programmes, mentoring, coaching and public speaking. Strong background in technology, especially related to developing new products using lean methodologies and working with agile teams. Mentor and coach on many acceleration programmes & events, including Eleven Ventures, Startup Academy, InnoEnergy Primer, Climate KIC, UNDP CSDU Incubator and Google Launchpad.

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Željko Crnjaković is an internet entrepreneur. English language has been his area of work, together with communications since 1999, and he has been working in marketing for the last 16 years. He is the founder of the digital audio and video production agency Solutium and author and producer of several podcasts and YouTube channels. He is an active member of the coworking, entrepreneurial and IT communities, as well as the coordinator of the InfostudHub coworking center.

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Zoran Kovačić is an expert in broadcast, television, radio and digital media. He is the initiator and founder of the first web portal specializing in the media and telecom industry in Southeast Europe. Besides this, he has a plethora of expertise as a consultant on media management, training coaching, development and application of digital business models for media outlets. He published several books specialized in media history. He does not consider himself as a journalist, but as someone who likes to write, create, and kickstart things. In 2018, he launched MediaDaily.biz, a regional portal with a unique business model – hardwall subscription – which he developed into a reliable source of information for the professional media and journalist community in the WB. So far he worked and provided consultancies to a variety of media actors in the region, including public service media, and portals in the early stages of their development.

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Zoya Charles is a multimedia journalist and editor with more than 25 years experience, and has held senior management roles at the BBC. With the Thomson foundation her work has included the role as senior executive producer on the OPEN Media Hub project which trained multimedia broadcast journalists, editors and managers in countries neighbouring the European Union. At the BBC Zoya worked as an editor leading one of its most innovative video journalism teams, which won several awards for its output. As part of her work, she also helped to develop BBC’s digital strategy.

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