Amanda Koster

Amanda Koster is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose commercial and personal work has shown a consistent commitment to telling stories of real people, human rights, cultural diversity and global equality. She combines her anthropology background with multi-media skills to create content as a means for powerful communication and storytelling.

In her talk 'Can I Come WIth You? Citizen Journalism and SalaamGarage' she details the birth of her organization, profiles some of the projects undertaken by citizen journalists so far and inspires audience members to create their own projects and get them out there.

Her book “Can I Come with You?” (Bennett & Hastings, 2008) is a collection of over a decade of her international social documentary projects, including excerpts from her personal journals. She has received many awards and grants for her personal projects including 8 awards for her project AIDS Is Knocking in the prestigious IPA Lucie Awards. Amanda is featured among the fifty successful, inspiring American women in the book: “In Their Shoes” (by Deborah Reber, publisher: Simon & Schuster).
Besides shooting commercially, Amanda is working with the NYU Dept. of Global Health creating hyper-local multi-media content for software to serve HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya. Clients include The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Int’l YWCA, The New York Times, Newsweek, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Business Week, and national advertising agencies. She has taught photography internationally and is invited regularly as an industry speaker and representative worldwide. Amanda has been invited to speak at TEDx Seattle, Web 2.0, SxSW, Gnomedex, Microsoft and several Universities around the country.