Senior fellow Adam Clayton Powell III, who leads CCLP’s new initiative on mobile phones as a platform for public service, was named a Highway Africa Fellow at the 2014 Highway Africa Conference at Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies in Grahamstown, South Africa.
The 2014 Highway Africa Fellows, left to right: Joe Alfers, Mathatha Tsedu, Cheriff Moumina Sy, CCLP senior fellow Adam Clayton Powell III, Elizabeth Barratt, Jovial Rantao, and Amina Frense.
In addition to being the only American to receive the award, Powell also holds the record for attendance; he has presented at 17 of the 18 annual Highway Africa Conference meetings, attending more conferences than even the conference organizers themselves.
He helped start the Highway Africa Conference in 1997 with its founder Guy Berger, who served as the head of Rhodes University’s School of Journalism & Media Studies and, before moving to Rhodes, edited one of South Africa’s four anti-apartheid newspapers.
As Adam Clayton Powell pointed out: @Highway_Africa older than @google, @facebook, @twitter etc; hadn't thought of it like that #Highway2014
— Theresa Mallinson (@tcmallinson) September 7, 2014
“We had 45 delegates,” said Powell. “Now hundreds come!”
In fact, Rhodes University says the Highway Africa Conference has become “the largest annual gathering of African journalists on the continent.”
"Africa is undergoing two revolutions: mobile and population explosions." – Adam Clayton Powell III #Highway2014
— MTN Group (@MTNGroup) September 7, 2014
At this year’s conference, Powell also introduced a panel discussion, “The Evolution of the Newsroom – disruption and the quest for order,” which is featured in the video below:
Next year, Powell will help the Highway Africa Conference reach a global audience by testing out a small pilot program allowing audiences to participate through live video calls from other campuses around the world, including the U.S., U.K., India, Singapore, and Korea.