African Futures – Community of Practice Participants
Muthi Nhlema
African speculative fiction writer
Muthi Nhlema is a short story writer who accidentally stumbled into the world of African Speculative Fiction and hasn’t figured out where the exit door is yet. Spotlighted as one of the 100 African Writers of Speculative Fiction and Fantasyby Geoff Ryman, Muthi’s first foray into speculative fiction was his novella, ‘Ta O’Reva’, about the return of Nelson Mandela to a post-apocalyptic South Africa. The novella won third prize at the 2015 International Freeditorial Long-Short Story Competition and was also shortlisted for Best Novella at the inaugural 2017 Nommo Award for African Speculative Fiction, alongside internationally acclaimed writers such as Nnedi Okorafor. An excerpt of the novella, ‘Legacy’ was long-listed for the 2015 Writivism Short Story Prize and was runner-up for the 2015 Dede Kamkondo Short Story Award. Muthi’s second speculative fiction piece, ‘One Wit’ This Place’, about a broken family trying to survive a world ravaged by climate change, opened the 2016 Imagine Africa 500 anthology, and was later re-published by the Manchester Review in 2017. The story received positive reviews, including a mention by the Nigerian writer and editor Wole Talabi, who called it one of the top 10 African Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction pieces of 2016. Muthi’s other non-speculative fiction piece, ‘Free Seating’, a first-person account of an unpleasant bus-ride with a twist, won the 2015 First Merchant Bank-Malawi Writers’ Union Short Story Prize.
Aupson Wilson Thole
Khaya Heritage Foundation
Aupson Wilson Thole is currently running Khaya Heritage Foundation that looks into the Safeguarding, Interpreting, Promoting heritage of Malawi. He worked as Museums Education Officer and Conservator in the National Museums of Malawi. He is a member of Malawi National Ecosystem Assessment working under Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) Team. He took part in the African Futures work done in Mombera Kingdom, Mzimba in Malawi. In February 2025, he took part in the BES-Net Regional Trialogue for East and Southern Africa at Windhoek in Namibia. He is also a member of the UNESCO 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Malawi and Trainer of Trainers.
Wole Talabi
Author
Wole Talabi is an engineer, writer, and editor from Nigeria. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon, which was nominated for the Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy award and several other major awards. His short fiction has appeared in places like Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Africa Risen anthology and is collected in the books Convergence Problems and Incomplete Solutions. He also been a finalist for the Hugo, Nommo, BSFA, Sidewise, Ignyte and Crawford awards, as well as the Caine Prize for African Writing. He has edited five anthologies including Africanfuturism: An Anthology and Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology. He likes scuba diving, elegant equations, and oddly shaped things. He currently lives and works in Perth, Australia. Find him at wtalabi.wordpress.com.
Ass. Prof. Anne Ouma
Umea University, Umea Sweden and Tom Mboya University, Kenya
Ass. Prof. Anne Ouma’s work examines Indigenous ethnobotanical health knowledge and socio-spatial transformation – globally including linkages to previous and contemporary colonial geographies. She has published on the use of narratives and storytelling in presenting contemporary Indigenous community discourses in sustainable transformative approaches to governance geographies, health and wellbeing. Her current work focuses on 1) Examining inter-generational learning of ethnobotanical knowledge based on oral narratives and place- based learning;2) Commodification of ethnobotanical knowledge and livelihoods, encounters in urban spaces and places 3) Interdisciplinary research on Socio-cultural determinants of community and individual health and wellbeing. Sustainable Transformative discourses on the African and High North Contexts.
Chinelo Onwualu
Writer and Editor
I am a queer Nigerian writer and editor living in Toronto, Canada. I’m the co-host of Griots and Galaxies, a podcast about African Speculative fiction and the people who write it. I’m also co-founder of Omenana, a magazine of African Speculative Fiction, and former co-editor of Anathema Magazine for queer writers of colour. I was chief spokesperson for the African Speculative Fiction Society, and I’m a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, which I attended as the recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship. My short stories have been featured in Slate.com, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, The Kalahari Review and Brittle Paper magazines, and several award-winning anthologies ,including Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction 2020, and 2021’s Best of World SF Vol.1. I’ve been nominated for the Ignyte Community Award, the Locus Awards, the British Science Fiction Awards, and the Nommo Awards.
Dr Joseph Karanja
BES-Net ILK Project Officer, UNESCO
Dr. Joseph Karanja is a Project Officer with UNESCO’s Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) Programme. He leads the Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) Support Unit for the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net), a joint initiative co-implemented with UNDP and UNEP-WCMC. As the ILK focal point for BES-Net, he supports interweaving of ILK in all BES-Net workstreams, ensuring biodiversity policies and actions are informed by best available evidence.
Ekari Mbvundula Chirombo
Story Ink Africa
Ekari Mbvundula Chirombo is a published author, editor, and environmental practitioner. She is the founder of Story Ink Africa, a writing and editing service that originally launched as a live storytelling events platform.
Dr Patrick Keys
Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University
Dr Patrick Keys is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. His overarching aim is to explore how society will navigate climate and societal turbulence toward a sustainable and just future. His research is highly interdisciplinary and is focused on a broad range of global challenges, including climate change futures, moisture recycling and society, and improving anticipation of Anthropocene change. To explore these topics, his research group uses climate data and models, societal simulations, and creative futures methods. Prior to joining Boston University, Pat served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. Previously, Pat founded an environmental consultancy that worked with local and international partners. In collaboration with different partners, he explored food security in the UAE, the link between drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, and climate change adaptation and mitigation in Fort Collins. Previously, Pat founded an environmental consultancy that worked with local and international partners. In collaboration with different partners, he explored food security in the UAE, the link between drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, and climate change adaptation and mitigation in Fort Collins.
Omar Degan
Architect and Author
Omar Degan is a professor of architecture and the Principal of Do Architecture Group, an architecture firm based between Somalia, Italy and the USA specialising in emergency architecture, post-conflict reconstruction and fragile contexts.
His firm’s principle lies in designing culturally, historically and climatically relevant solutions to social problems worldwide, with a particular focus on the most fragile contexts and communities.
Omar obtained his Master in Architecture for Sustainability and Built Environment from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Polytechnic University of Turin ( Italy) where he also earned his Post-graduate degree in Emergency contexts and developing countries.
In 2022 he become an Obama Leader and in 2023 co-founded the FragilityLab, a research and non-profit organization that aims to support the process of peace and development through architecture in the most distressed areas of the world.
With a global portfolio spanning Asia, South America, and Africa, he has contributed his expertise to numerous projects worldwide. His extensive experience in the field of architecture has been instrumental in establishing an inclusive and professional architecture office. – www.doarchitecturegroup.com