Dickens is a Kenyan journalist, and a 2015 John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University. During his fellowship he organised the first ever drone journalism conference, held in Silicon Valley with support from Center for Investigative Reporting and News Lab at Google. He's the founder of AfricanSkyCAM, a drone journalism project which was a winner in the inaugural African News Innovation Challenge. Dickens was the digital content manager at the Star newspaper where he led the establishment of the newspaper's website, social media platforms and drove the digital strategy. He also led a project on collaborative journalism that involved citizens contributing stories through a mobile app and the creation of a health data portal to kickstart data journalism in the newsroom. His interest is in using new technology for storytelling and integrating the public in the news reporting process. DIckens has been invited to speak on drone journalism, media trends, social media and crowdsourcing news at several conferences around the world including SxSw, re:publica and the World News Media Congress. He contributed to BBC's Future of News Report. He was part of the team of journalists chosen by Deutsche Welle Academy to develop a manifesto on how to use digital technology to promote freedom of expression in the global south. He's a trainer for WAN-IFRA emerging markets webinar series and advises hivisasa.com — a mobile news startup in Kenya.