Groundviews was established in 2006 by TED Fellow Sanjana Hattotuwa, who continues to curate site content every day.

Educated at S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, Sanjana read English at the University of Delhi, India and as a Rotary World Peace Fellow, was awarded an Advanced Masters in Conflict Resolution and International Relations from the University of Queensland, Brisbane with a Dean’s Commendation for High Achievement.

He is currently a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives and a frequent commentator on journalism and new media in domestic and international fora. In addition to hosting a talk show on public television, Sanjana teaches at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism (SLCJ), engaging journalists from state, private, alternative media on how to use web, internet and mobile technologies to strengthen professional, independent and investigative journalism.

In 2010, Sanjana received a TEDFellowship, two years after he was awarded a News & Knowledge Entrepreneur Fellowship from the Ashoka Foundation. Both awards recognise pioneering efforts to create and use citizen journalism and new media to bear witness and strengthen democracy, human rights and just peace.

Sanjana does not share his co-editor’s mercurial fascination with Nick Clegg, but will openly admit, for nigh on 15 years, to be completely in love with Nandita Das.

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Nigel V. Nugawela was born in Israel and attended primary school at the Anglican International School of Jerusalem. He moved to Sri Lanka in 1995, where he completed his secondary education at the Colombo International School. Nigel read Politics at the University of Edinburgh and wrote his MA (Hons.) thesis on militant ideology, conflict and Tamil nationalism.

In addition to being co-editor of Groundviews he is a Researcher at the Conflict and Peace Analysis Unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives. He has spoken at international conferences on the form and content of citizen and mainstream media in Sri Lanka.

Nigel’s primary areas of research interest are on the politics of Sri Lanka and the Middle East, ideologies, existentialism, nationalism studies, authoritarianism and democracy.

He is unyieldingly committed towards Liberalism and agrees with Nick Clegg- most of the time.