Valenti School's Press Play Valenti School of Communication

When Italy shut down because of COVID19, Alexa Bottura had an idea: Why not show her father, world renown chef Massimo Bottura, cooking with their family each night in their home? She streamed it on Instagram Live and it quickly became a hit. In this conversation, we hear from Alexa about how Italy is doing, how the idea of the show began, and what the future for Kitchen Quarantine is. 

Laura Gao is more than "just" a product manager at Twitter--she's also a talented artist. In this lively conversation, she talks about her job at Twitter, a meme that made her famous, and how she's used graphic stories to spread information about what life is really like in Wuhan.

Gil Bashe, the managing partner of Global Health at FINN Partners, is one of the nation’s preeminent experts in health communication. His healthcare career spans the patient, physician, provider, payer and policy sectors. At the center of Gil’s life and work is the belief that communication is part of the care. In this conversation, Gil lays out his belief of how health communication should be handled, and what lessons this global pandemic may give the next generation of communicators.

Angela Oduor Lungati is a technologist, community builder and an open source software advocate. She is passionate about building and using appropriate technology tools to create impact in lives of marginalized groups. With over 10 years of experience, she currently serves as the Executive Director at Ushahidi, a global non-profit technology company that builds tools for democratizing information, increasing transparency and lowering barriers for individuals to raise their voices.

Larry Madowo is the BBC Africa Business Editor. He set up and leads a unit of nearly 30 journalists spread across Africa and London, covering Africa’s business, tech and innovation in English, French and Swahili. He has been a contributing columnist for The Washington Post’s Global Opinions page and written for CNN.com and Forbes Africa. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Africans 2018 by NewAfrican magazine.

Asif Sheikh is CEO and Founder of A24Media, one of the largest digitized video archives on the continent of Africa. Under his visionary leadership, A24 has grown to covering over 45 African countries and launched the continent's first all factual video on demand platform, Yebo!, which started in late 2019.