Lidija Sabados is a journalist and media development expert, with over 10 years of professional experience in journalism, media management, and communications. She has written about media in the Middle East for the Ethical Journalism Network and the Centre for Media, Data and Society at the CEU's Democracy Institute in Budapest, Hungary. For three years, she was the executive director of Syria Direct, a media outlet based in Berlin, Germany focused on the conflict in Syria. She is currently the Global Network Manager at Tecnologia Critica, managing a new network of organizations in the Global South focused on digital resilience and social justice. Originally from the Balkans, she grew up in Toronto, Canada and has been based in Amman, Jordan for the last 9 years. She speaks French, Arabic and Serbo-Croatian and is the recipient of the 2022 Janice Stein Alumni Leadership Award at the University of Toronto. Lidija received her bachelor's degree in International Relations and Modern Languages from the University of Ottawa and her master's degree in Global Public Policy from the University of Toronto.