Ilir Gashi is a media expert, journalist, and creative producer whose work bridges independent media sustainability, community development, and innovative storytelling across the Balkans. He collaborates with numerous local media outlets and civil society organizations in Serbia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, helping them tell their stories in a more powerful way.

As the director of the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation at the time, he conceptualised and launched Cenzolovka, a popular Serbian portal dedicated to journalism and media, as well as the Digital Journalism School for young journalists, which this year enrolled its ninth generation of participants.

He is also a co-founder of the Group for Media Freedom, a unique movement that, in 2017, united independent media, civil society organizations, journalism associations, and activists in the fight for media freedom in Serbia. In 2023, his story The Alternative Balkan Postal System, originally published by Kosovo 2.0, gained international recognition, with republications in The Guardian, Italy’s Internazionale, and other European outlets, including Danish, Czech, Spanish, and French media. The story earned him the Peaceful Change Initiative award, a nomination for the European Press Prize, and was later adapted into a stage performance presented at the ZEG Storytelling Festival in Tbilisi and the iMEdD Forum in Athens.