Lotfullah Najafizada is a 2019 Millennium fellow and an Afghan journalist with Amu TV, an international media outlet for Afghanistan that he and his colleagues founded after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. At Amu, Najafizada and his colleagues are trying to revitalize free press in Afghanistan by connecting Afghan journalists in exile with those who are inside the country and providing free and unbiased reporting for the Afghan people. Najafizada’s nearly two decades of journalism experience includes leading TOLOnews TV from 2009 to 2021, where he led the largest news operation in Afghanistan for over a decade and conducted many high-profile interviews with global leaders. Among many recognitions, One Young World awarded him the Journalist of Year Award for 2022, Paris-based Reporters without Borders awarded him with the medal of Press Freedom Hero in 2016, TIME Magazine profiled him as a Next Generation Global Leader in 2016, and Forbes magazine selected him among the 30 under 30 Asia influencers in media in 2017. Najafizada was the only Afghan journalist who attended two rounds of civil-society talks with the Taliban in Doha in 2019 and in Oslo in 2022. He was formerly a fellow with the Institute of Politics, University of Chicago from 2021 to 2022, the Asia Society in 2012, the Rumsfeld Foundation in 2016, and the World Press Institute in 2010. He has a BSc in economics. He’s married and has two children.