Renowned poet – critic Prof. K. Satchidanandan is the Festival Director along with Publisher Ravi Deecee of DC Books is the Chief Facilitator.
More than 400 speakers including bestselling writer Jeffrey Archer, Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Ada Yonath, Piyush Pandey, Francesc Miralles, Geethanjali Shree, Wendy Doniger, Ramachandra Guha, Palanivel Thiagarajan, Sanjeev Sanyal, Anand Neelakantan, Shashi Tharoor, Manu S. Pillai, Prakash Raj, and Shobhaa De took part in KLF 2023.
The digital edition also witnessed an International Poetry Festival with over 50 poets from more than 10 countries including Palestine, Israel, South Africa, Italy, United States of America, Ireland.
[6] The fifth edition was held from 16 to 19 January 2020, at Kozhikode Beach, with the presence of artists, actors, celebrities, writers, thinkers, and activists, discussing literature, art, cinema, culture, dance, music, environment, science, and technology.
Speakers at the previous editions include Arundhati Roy, Richard Stallman, Noam Chomsky (Video), Yuval Noah Harari (Video), Sadhguru, Romila Thapar, Ramachandra Guha, Shashi Tharoor, Rakesh Sharma, Rishi Kapoor, Chetan Bhagath, Karan Thapar, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sobhaa De and Sagarika Ghose.
Kijote Kathakali by Ignacio Garcia, Sufi Rock Outfit Alif featuring Ulrike Almut Sandig, Russian Music & Dance, Concert by L Subramaniam, Steffan Donnely performed a bilingual piece of contemporary theater, Qawwali night by Mystic Sufiana Mehfil were some of the defining moments of KLF 2019.
Richard Stallman, Yuval Noah Harrari, Shashi Tharoor ,Satish Aalekar, Keki Daruwala, Chetan Bhagat, Caryl Lewis, Ravinder Singh Jeet Thayil attended the festival.
Guest nation for the year was Ireland (represented by Gabriel Rosenstock, Paddy Bushe, Liam Carson, Alan Titley, Amanda Bell, and Conor Kostick).
Romila Thapar, Ashis Nandy, Sagarika Ghose, Rajdeep Sardesai, Noam Chomsky, Rishi Kapoor participated.
The first edition witnessed writers and speakers including M T Vasudevan Nair, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Anand, Taslima Nasrin, Ashok Vajpeyi, Khadeeja Mumtaz, M.Mukundan, Sarah Joseph, Githa Hariharan, Meena Kandasamy, Pratibha Ray, TD Ramakrishnan, T Padmanabhan, Subhash Chandran, Leena Manimekalai and Girish Kasaravalli, to name a few.