Mpho Ndaba is an activist scholar, writer and producer. He is the founding director of Changing the Lense SA (CTL-SA), a social justice and development content hub whose work is around development, media and climate justice. He holds degrees in International Relations, Media Studies and Development Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) and the University of Cape Town (UCT) respectively. And is currently the 2020 Open Society Foundation for South Africa scholar at WITS Sociology Department, researching food, cities and development.

Ndaba is a recipient of a number of accolades, in recognition for his leadership and academic excellence. These include the Emerging Leader Award from the Development and Leadership Unit (DLU) at the University of the Witwatersrand; the Andrew Mellon Funded Scholarship in 2018 at the University of Cape Town; the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018, in the environment category; the Andrew Mellon Funded Fellowship and; the Open Society Foundation Scholarship in 2020. He serves on the board of the SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition just name a few.

He has written for Mail & Guardian, Africa as a country, Vanguard Magazine, the Arts of the working class (German publication), Poetry Portion and the South African Labour Bulletin. Ndaba has also featured on Radio 702, Cape Talk, The Big debate, Eyewitness News, Cutting Edge, Newzroom Afrika, Power FM and Voice of Wits to name a few, doing socio-political commentary on environmental justice, development, democracy & youth participation, gender, race and sexual orientation and media. His academic interests include development, cities, food, International Relations and media