Joel Sam is the Coordinator of the Ghana Agricultural Information Network System (GAINS) and also the Director of the CSIR-Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (CSIR-INSTI). His professional background is in information and knowledge management. He has 22 years working experience in research and academic environments. He has been a University Lecturer for the past ten years teaching the use of library and information resources and user studies in support of teaching and research.

Since August 2003, Emile Frison has been Director General, Bioversity International. He has increased the emphasis of the Center’s work on the use of agricultural biodiversity to improve the lives of smallholder farmers in developing countries by diversifying their livelihoods and improving their nutrition and the sustainability of their productions systems. Most of his career has been in international agricultural research. He obtained an MSc in agricultural sciences from the Catholic University of Louvain and a PhD from the University of Gembloux in Belgium.