Naipanoi Lepapa

Naipanoi Lepapa is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is passionate about underreported issues in human rights, gender, health, technology, the environment, and climate change. She specializes in open-source intelligence and cross-border investigations. Naipanoi is a 2023 Pulitzer Centre AI Accountability fellow. For her role in empowering women in the East Africa region, Lepapa was awarded the Gender Mainstreaming Award in 2022. After her investigative series on the surrogacy industry in Kenya, she won the investigative reporting award and was named Kenya's Journalist of the Year by the Media Council of Kenya at the 2022 Annual Journalism Excellence Awards (AJEA). She was also the first runner-up in the enviromental reporting category for her investigation on how Kenya has become a dumping ground for electronic waste by rich nations. Lepapa was a finalist in the Inge Feltrinelli Prize (2022), the 2021 Fetisov Journalism Award in the Outstanding Investigative Reporting category, and was part of the Baby Broker Project, a Pulitzer Center-supported project that was long-listed in the 2023 One Media Awards in the print category.