In what is a unique honour, Prof. Vinod Pavarala, UNESCO Chair on Community Media at University of Hyderabad (UoH), has been invited by the Austrian Federation of Free Radios to speak at the biennial “Civil Media: Unconference on Community Media and Civil Society” to be held in Salzburg, Austria from June 15-17, 2017. In addition, he will also be conducting a workshop for Austrian community radio stations on the process of self-assessment and peer review, with the help of a toolkit and methodology developed for the purpose by the Chair. Designed primarily as a forum of non-commercial radio and television in Austria, the conference seeks to bring together over 100 national and international community media practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers.

Vinod Pavarala2

Dr. Pavarala is a senior professor in the Department of Communication and heads the UNESCO Chair on Community Media, the only one of its kind in the world. He has previously addressed many important international meetings on community media, including those organized by UNESCO Paris, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, the Community Media Forum of Europe, the East African Community, the German Federation of Free Radios, and the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communications.

The UNESCO Chair on Community Media established in 2011 has been involved in promoting the cause of citizen-owned-and-managed community media not only in India and elsewhere in South Asia, but also in Europe and Africa, through policy advocacy, research, knowledge sharing, and capacity building.

Prof. Vinod Pavarala can be reached on email: vpavarala@gmail.com