Hamadou Tidiane Sy is a seasoned Senegalese journalist and a passionate journalism trainer. He is the founder of the award-winning online news platform (Ouestaf News) specializing in investigations and in-depth reporting. Based in Dakar, he is training the next generation of African journalists, as the founder and Director of E-jicom, a renowned journalism, communication and digital media school.
Tidiane sits on the board of major African media organizations, namely the Dakar-based West Africa Democracy Radio and Africa Check. Recognised as a social innovator in the field of “News and Knowledge” by the Ashoka and Knight Foundations, he was also listed, during the Covid pandemic, amongst the 16 Africans offering the most relevant answers to the pandemic through his journalistic initiative “Reliable information against disinformation” to fight the Covid-19. In 2021 he received the “Media Leadership Award” at the Brussels Rebranding Africa Forum.
As a journalist, Hamadou Tidiane Sy has reported extensively throughout the African continent for the BBC, AFP (Agence France Presse), Global Radio News, Channel Africa, RFI English Service, etc. At the head of Ouestaf, he took part in major global investigation projects, contributing to the global “Panama Papers”, “the Swissleaks”, and “Fatal Extractions.”
Tidiane now doubles as a researcher and has just led a research team which worked on the “Senegalese media in the internet age”. Before that, he worked on a research paper on “online privacy and freedom of expression in Senegal” as a Global Network Initiative (GNI) fellow.