SESSION
Dragon’s Den pitch session
Journalists, roll up with your story pitches!
This is a Dragon’s Den-style interactive session, where journalists in the audience will pitch story ideas to a panel of commissioning editors from a variety of local and international publications. They will then get immediate feedback to help them hone and refine their pitch, and possibly even get a story commission—rare, but it has happened!
Brian OwensSession proposer, producer and moderator | Freelance | Canada
Brian Owens is an award-winning science journalist from Canada with 20 years of experience in the field, more than half of that time as a freelancer. He writes regularly for Nature, Science, and Medscape, as well as his local community newspaper, the St. Croix Courier.
Terna GyuseSpeaker | Mongabay | South Africa
Terna Gyuse is one of Mongabay‘s Africa editors. He has previously worked for Inter Press Service, the Climate Action Network, and for GRAIN, an NGO focused on biodiversity and community-controlled food systems everywhere. He grew up in Nigeria and now lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
Martin EnserinkSpeaker | Science | Netherlands
Martin Enserink is a deputy news editor at Science based in Amsterdam, specialising in global health. As international news editor, he coordinated and edited news from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His own writing has focused on global health, infectious diseases, research ethics, misconduct, research funding, and scientific publishing. He was a mentor to four African science journalists in SjCOOP, a programme run by the World Federation of Science Journalists.
Linda NordlingSpeaker | Research Africa | South Africa
Linda Nordling is a science journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa. She has reported on science policy, research ethics, careers, and medical research for over 20 years. Her work has appeared in numerous international publications including Nature, Science, The Guardian, Sapiens, and the British Medical Journal. As founding editor of Research Professional News’ Africa desk, she has spent a significant part of her career covering African science policy and has managed and mentored numerous African science journalist.
Laura HowesSpeaker | Chemical & Engineering News | USA/Germany
Laura Howes is the executive editor for life sciences at Chemical & Engineering News. At C&EN, Laura and her team mainly cover the biological end of chemistry, including the science and business of drug discovery and development. Howes is based in Heidelberg, Germany, and has degrees in chemistry and art history.