Thorsten Koch, MA, PgDip is a social scientist with an MA in Mass Communications (University of Leicester). He has been a freelance journalist since 1995, initially making a career in regional reporting and IT. He later came to edit numerous financial and economic newsletters. Koch has founded the think tank Policyinstitute.net, and has so far published two monographs. His academic focus is on preventing and countering violent extremism and hate, mis-/disinformation, and capacity building in the Sahel. In passing, Koch used to be publisher of country information on Mauritania.