Fekadu Gurmu Balcha is a Senior Researcher at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 2016 he obtained his PhD in plant breeding from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa. Through the first controlled crossing experiments in Ethiopia, he developed two vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) varieties exhibiting farmers' desired traits (high dry matter content and high yield). The varieties were released in November 2019 and received good acceptance by farmers, seed producers and consumers. They are currently grown by the majority of the sweet potato producing farmers. In 2017, he received awards and letters of recognition from the Ethiopian former Prime Minister, His Excellency Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn, and from the former President of the South Regional State in Ethiopia, His Excellency Mr. Dessie Dalke, in recognition of his contribution to food and nutrition security through the development of bio-fortified sweet potato varieties, seed production and technology dissemination to end-users. In 2020, he was awarded as an outstanding researcher by the Southern Agricultural Research Institute.

Dimobe is an Assistant Professor at the Insitute of Environmental Science and Rural Development, University of Dédougou, in Dédougou, Burkina Faso. Since January 2019, he has been working as a lecturer and researcher at the University of Dédougou. In 2020, he received the African-German Network of Excellence in Science grant for junior researchers. Dimobe earned a Master of Science in botany (2007), and in applied plant biology (2010), both from the University of Lomé, Togo, and a PhD in botany and plant ecology (2017) from the University Ouaga I Professor Joseph KI-ZERBO, in Burkina Faso, and Rostock, in Germany. From 2017–2020 Dimobe worked with the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use as a research scientist and member of the Earth Observation Applications Unit. His research interests include climate change, natural resources management, biogeography, conservation, and biomass modelling. He is involved in capacity building, especially in the use of open access earth observation data and software for addressing environmental change problems. In 2015, he spent six months at the University of Rostock, Germany, as a visiting scholar.

Priscilla Kolibea Mante is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. She obtained her PhD in pharmacology from the same university in 2013. She was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Michigan Medical School, US, under the University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars programme through which she underwent her postdoctoral training until 2018. Her research focuses on the development of better therapeutic options for resistant epilepsy. She is currently working on developing a portable device that reduces the costs of diagnosing mental conditions while improving the therapy. Mante received the International Rising Talents Award in 2019, in the frame of the L’Oréal Foundation-UNESCO programme. She is a beneficiary of the 2019 Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World Early Career Fellowship. She is also a Fellow of the Africa Science Leadership Programme and a Young Affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences. Mante is also a registered pharmacist with a specialization in neuropharmacology.

Phyllis W. Muturi is a Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Embu, in Embu, Kenya, where she teaches Agricultural Sciences. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Master of Science in Crop Protection, both from the University of Nairobi, in Nairobi, Kenya, and her PhD in Plant Breeding and Biotechnology from Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda. Her interests include Crop Protection and Crop Improvement. She has more than six years of teaching and research experience. She is the Students’ Academic Advisor for Plant Breeding, Biotechnology and Crop Protection programmes. She is a member of the Biotechnology Technical Committee (2020–2022), a member of the Kenya Bureau of Standards (2019–2021), and the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (2019–2021). She was awarded Early Career Fellowship by Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World last year. In 2019, she received a visiting scholarship from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala) and in 2018 she was awarded the Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund Research Fellowships at Biosciences eastern and central Africa-International Livestock Research Institute, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Tonjock Rosemary Kinge is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Bamenda, in Bamenda, Cameroon, where she teaches mycology, plant pathology and botany. She earned a Master of Science in Botany and a PhD in Botany (Mycology) from the University of Buea, in Buea, Cameroon. Her scientific interests include: mycobiome analysis, fungi diversity, mushroom domestication and conservation, plant pathogenic fungi assessment and control, ethnomycological studies and multidisciplinary research. Tonjock is a member of the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists. In 2019, she was named Fellow of the Africa Science Leadership Programme at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. In 2020, she became an affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. She won a TWAS-Chinese Academy of Sciences postgraduate fellowship (2008–2009), China; a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Free State, South Africa (2016–2017); and a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Florida (2017–2018), in Gainesville, Florida. Currently, she is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.