Founder and Project Director, Story Editor, Camera,
Diane Hendrix is a freelance writer and producer with twenty years’ experience in documentary and video production for American and Australian projects. She produced for several PBS and Discovery documentaries, for independent documentaries and for PBS stations in Boston, NYC, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. She was Development Production Manager for the EVOLUTION series for NOVA and Paul Allen’s co-production on Evolution broadcast nationally. She has been a media lecturer and producer at Harvard and MIT. Intrigued by students at both colleges with international ambitions for social change, after a year’s research, she launched the YWI webisode series in East Africa in 2011.

Web Designer, Dan Sonnett is a freelance web producer, filmmaker, writer, and owner of Sonnett Media Group, LLC, a media production company. Since 2000he has produced web and video projects for PBS, public television stations, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Institutes of Health, and many nonprofit organizations. His work has aired on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and public television and was screened at the Kennedy Center and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has received two nominations from the SXSW Interactive Festival, earned a MUSE award from the American Association of Museums and two Webby awards. Dan’s latest project, The Art of Video Games, opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum March16, 2012. He is now working on web design for the Half the Sky campaign.

Consulting Producer/Editor/Camera, Vincent Liota (vinliota.tv) is a broadcast journalist and 2011-2012 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. For the last ten years, Vin has been producing and directing television programs. For five seasons, he was Senior Series Producer for the PBS science show NOVA scienceNOW. Previously, Vin was a staff video editor for ABC News on World News with Peter Jennings, Nightline, 20/20 and PBS on Now with Bill Moyers.He began his television career as a cameraman.

Collaborating Producer/Shooter, Nairobi, Peter Murimi has produced and directed numerous documentary projects for local and international television networks including BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. Peter won the coveted title of CNN Journalist of the year in 2004 for his piece Walk to Womanhood, that deals with issues surrounding FGM. In 2005, he produced and directed the documentary Get On Board, which was screened at the G8 Leaders Summit.

Other recent experiences include work done for Coca-Cola, UNHABITAT and other UN agencies. Peter also notably worked as the video and camera assistant on The Constant Gardener during his early years. During the last year, Peter has been involved in a climate change series spanning Africa and Asia as well as working on other humanitarian projects.

Social Media Coordinator, Rachael Miller is a Peace Corps veteran, now MBA candidate in a premier social enterprise program at Colorado State University. Having co-created many projects in West Africa with other innovators, she understands the necessity of open-source communication is pivotal, and YWI is her opportunity to continue sharing lessons from the field through collaboration.

Will Mutua is a technology collaborator and Nairobi-based high tech software developer and writer, founder of Afrinnovator.com (as well as an MIT-AITI alum), devoted to “telling the stories of African startups, African innovation, African made technology, African tech entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.”

Advisors

Michael Gordon, YWI Collaborator and Director of AITI at MIT is interested in promoting information and communication technology in developing countries (ICT4Dev). This involves education and development of technology appropriate for developing countries. In addition to growing MIT’s Africa Information Technology Initiative (AITI) to train students in five countries with Google support this year, he is co-founder of the Medi-SIM project. He is a visiting lecturer at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in Rwanda, and sits on the Board of Advisors of Strathmore University’s iLab Africa (Kenya).

William Anderson, (Editor: Global Cycle Solutions profile, 10 min.), has worked on more than 100 productions for PBS strands “NOVA”, “World”, “American Playhouse”, and “American Experience,” and has edited dozens of independent productions (e.g., “King Corn”). Bill won several Emmy nominations for editing and an ACE Eddy for his work on Al Pacino’s documentary, “Looking for Richard.”

Marcelino Alvarez, YWI Interactive Production Advisor, created award-winning interactive websites and campaigns for several clients, including MINI USA, Coke Zero, SlimJim, VW and Virgin Atlantic. As Executive Interactive producer for Wieden & Kennedy, he led interactive production on Nike, Old Spice, Electronic Arts and Laika. Marcelino founded his second company, Uncorked Studios to develop mobile and web projects and in March with an international team developed Safecast.com in three days as a Kickstarter project, to aggregate and take new radiation readings in Japan after the earthquake, attracting the new head of MIT’s Media Lab and scientists and techies across the world.