Hongxiang Huang is the founder and CEO of China House, connecting Chinese overseas businesses with global sustainable development through youth. He graduated from Journalism School of Fudan University and Development Practice at Columbia University. He started China House in Kenya in 2014 to connect Chinese overseas investment and global sustainable development through research, projects and youth engagement. He was featured in an Oscar-shortlisted film The Ivory Game as an ivory trade investigator. Huang was also nominated by Forbes China as “30 Under 30” in 2018 under the category of social enterprise.

Lina Getachew Ayenew is an author and social entrepreneur from Ethiopia. Her book The Complete Beginner’s Guide to China-Africa Relations offers an accessible entry-point to a complex relationship. She also wrote the first and (currently only) book in the world that teaches Mandarin Chinese to Amharic speakers. She recently set up Education for Ethiopia, a social enterprise that creates educational content in Ethiopia’s local languages. A graduate of Yale University, her journey to China started when she served as an instructor at the prestigious Xiangya Medical School through the Yale-China Fellowship.

Eric Olander is the Managing Editor of the China Africa Project, an independent, non-partisan media organization dedicated to exploring every facet of China's engagement in Africa. With more than 1 million followers on social media, the CAP is the world's largest online community dedicated to China-Africa issues. The weekly China in Africa Podcast is now downloaded more than 30,000 times per month and closely followed by policymakers, academics and corporate leaders in the U.S., China, and Africa. Eric is an experienced journalist with more than 25 years of experience at many of the world's leading news organizations including CNN, the BBC and FRANCE 24 among others. He received his master's in Chinese international relations from the University of Hong Kong and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with an undergraduate degree in East African history. Eric is fluent in both Mandarin Chinese and French and recently moved from Shanghai to Saigon.