Ibrahima Wane is Professor of African Literature and Civilization at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. Wane is director of the doctoral program in African Studies at the Arts, Cultures and Civilizations (ARCIV) doctoral school in UCAD's Faculty of Letters and Humanities. He is also head of the Master in African Literature in the Department of Modern Letters. Pr. Ibrahima Wane is also Senegal's expert-referent for the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Prof. Samba Buri MBOUP was educated at the Dakar Cheikh Anta Diop University and in France. He holds a Doctorate in General & Comparative Literature (Thesis on the Wolof Literature and Orature), and a University Diploma in Swahili/Bantu Language and Civilization, both from Sorbonne University, Paris. He speaks French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, as well as Wolof (mother-tongue) and Swahili (an African Union working language). Currently an Associate Professor at the Dakar Centre for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS) and a (NR) Sr. Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies (CSPS) in Juba (South Sudan), he is also a founding member of the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute. Formerly an Associate Professor at the University of South Africa (UNISA) from October 2006 to December 2012, Prof. Mboup also served as Ambassador of Senegal to Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean (August 2001/July 2006). In that capacity, he was a co-opted member in the NEPAD Steering Committee; he also served as  a NEPAD resource-person and an African Union expert in the areas of education,  governance, security. As an International consultant in Development anthropology and Strategic studies, he has conducted several missions for the UN General Secretariat and UN Agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNHCHR, UNHCR, UNESCO) in African countries  such as Mozambique, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Cape Verde, Angola, Senegal, Central African Republic, Chad, Rep. of Congo, Niger. A co-translator into French (1986) of Walter Rodney’s How Europe underdeveloped Africa (ÉditionsCaribéennes, Paris, 1986),  Dr Mboup has published in Portuguese a book on Gender (“Estatuto e Papel da Mulher Africana desde Ontem para Amanhã: para uma Avaliação crítica, Luanda, 1994), as well as several book chapters and  articles in English and French, in peer-reviewed journals, on themes such as linguistic and cultural anthropology, Development studies, education, gender, leadership, Afrikology, African renaissance, Pan-Africanism.

An unrelated namesake of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dialo Diop was for many years Secretary General of the last political party founded by Cheikh Anta Diop, the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), in 1976. He is now vice-president of the Pastef party.

Babacar Diop, known as Buuba, author of L'Afrique ancienne dévoilée (Ancient Africa Revealed), is Professor of Ancient History in the Faculty of Humanities at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar (UCAD). Since 1982, Mr. Diop has taught ancient civilizations in the Department of Ancient Languages and Civilizations at UCAD. Mr. Diop holds a DEA in History of African Societies (1977, Paris I Sorbonne), a post-graduate thesis in History (Paris I Sorbonne 1981), a certificate in Egyptology (Paris IV, Sorbonne 1977) and a State thesis in History defended in 2002 at UCAD. Now administratively retired, he remains Director of the Chair on the African Renaissance, a UCAD icesco project. He is also president of the Paalae pan-African association for literacy and adult education, and coordinator of the "Taxaw temm" citizens' movement for a more united Senegal, Africa and world.

Aziz Salmone Fall, Political scientist, member of GRILA (Groupe de recherche et d'initiative pour la libération de l'Afrique) and the Third World Forum, coordinator of the International Campaign Justice for Sankara, President of the CIRFA Internationalist Center, Lecturer at UQAM and McGill University. Co-founder of the MAG mouvement des assises de la Gauche in Senegal. Aziz Salmone Fall has spoken out against apartheid as coordinator of the Quebec anti-apartheid network. He opposes the presence of foreign military bases in Africa, and carries out advocacy work there, illustrated in the film Africom go home. He has produced an annotated critique of NEPAD, suggesting pan-African-centricity as a model for continental development. He has directed several feature films, including Samir Amin l'internationaliste organique.

Fadel Barro is a journalist by training and co-founder of the Y'en a marre movement, of which he has been one of the main architects since its creation in January 2011. A leader of "conquering youth who turn their backs on exile and defeatism", Fadel Barro's slogan "there is no such thing as a foreclosed destiny, only deserted responsibilities" has turned civic engagement into a humanist philosophy of action that has rallied young people across the continent to open up new possibilities. He is the inspiration behind a generation of activists who are now part of the Afrikki platform, made up of some fifty citizen movements and artists from across Africa and its diasporas. The holding of the first Université Populaire d'Engagement Citoyen (UPEC) in Dakar in July 2018, consolidated and amplified the exchange of practices and experiences of these movements, which, relying spontaneously on arts and culture, strengthen democracy and freedoms in Africa. Present at the Atelier de la pensée from its very first edition, Fadel Barro seeks to put "afrotopia" into practice through his various civic and political commitments. In Kaolack, he has just founded Jammi Gox Yi (the peace of the land), which intends to draw on the means of peace as a state of total fulfillment of a living being to achieve "moya", dignity or humanitude. Fadel Barro has been an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience since 2016 and has coordinated the Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) since 2020.

Bouna Alboury Ndiaye was born on February 26, 1967, in Dahra Jolof. He graduated from Lycée Limamou laye in Guediawaye in 1989. He enrolled in the Faculty of Law and became a member of the Coordination des Étudiants de Dakar (CED). He was expelled from Cheikh Anta Diop University following the 1994 invalid year. He joined the Ecole Normale Supérieure (now FASTE), graduating in 1997 as Professor of History-Geography, and became a member of the Cabinet of Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Madior Diouf from 2000 to 2001. On the political front, he has been a member of the RND Steering Committee since the 1987 Congress, General Secretary of the RND's Mouvement des Jeunesses Panafricaines Cheikh Anta Diop (MJPCAD) from 1993 to 2008, and a member of the SUDES National Executive Board as Deputy Secretary for Communication in 2003. He was Deputy Mayor of Guédiawaye from 2009 to 2014 and Deputy Secretary General in charge of Communications and RND Spokesman from 2008 to November 2022. He has been Secretary General of the RND since November 18, 2022.

Mansour SENE alias ColonelK14 is originally from the Fatick region, more precisely Tataguine. An artist, composer and cultural administrator, he is also a highly influential opinion leader in his region. He is president of Sine Production (Fatick), an association of rap artists from the Fatick region, and coordinator of Campus 2h (the voice of students and university civil society). Having left his mark on his homeland and the university campus with numerous shows and concerts in 2021, the young artist is producing an international album of 16 tracks, entitled KARBONE 14, a tribute to Professor Cheikh anta DIOP. According to the artist, the album's aim is to take action to popularize the thoughts of the late Professor Cheikh Anta DIOP, who is the most absent person today.