Global Gathering Summit Agenda

Summit Working Groups

The Summit @ the Global Gathering will be a design thinking workshop that will take place four hours every morning during three days. The Summit is bringing together 200 attendees who are representative of different organizations and mostly managers, Executive Directors and/or community leaders.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN

A design thinking workshop encourages creative problem solving and innovation to address challenges. Summit participants will be divided into 20 groups of 8 to 10 people each, with each group delving deeply into a particular topic for the entirety of the three days. Each group will begin by listing challenges in their particular topic, and then pick ONE challenge to design a solution or pathway forward.

HOW TO PREPARE

The following 19 topics have been created based on community feedback TCU collected before the event. When you arrive at the Summit, you will be asked to go to the circle that has the sign for your preferred topic. If it's at capacity, meaning no more than 10 people per circle, you will be required to pick another topic. As such, before you arrive, make sure you have read the topics below, and know your top three. No other preparation is required. We highly recommend that you pick the topic that mostly corresponds with your work or the goals of your project, to ensure work in a particular topic area happens post-Summit.

WHAT WE EXPECT

We know that you will have multiple topics you are interested in. The purpose of this workshop is to provide us with enough time to deeply think and work on the issues listed below. As a result, each group will need to take good notes, and produce quality report backs, so that the entire group of Summit participants can benefit.

____________________________________________________________________

Group 1. Community Health: Events: Tackling Travel, Visa and Border Crossings

We are currently experiencing many issues related to the practical details of coming together: from harsher visa challenges, to more dangerous border crossings. While we have no control over governments and their post-pandemic policy changes that impact our travel, we do have control over what we can do to prepare and plan our events, influence and/or educate the appropriate government bodies, and design how we come together.

Group 2. Community Health: Improving Equity and Collaboration

There are less connections between digital rights defenders because of fewer opportunities to see each other in person, and harder community building challenges. This is resulting in fewer collaborations between individuals as well as organizations, networks and movements. In this context, there is a widening equity gap: voices from the most at-risk, underrepresented communities are having a hard time participating in strategic conversations and collaborative efforts that require unpaid labor. Using the resources already available to us, what can be done? Are there new models of mutual aid we can adapt? How do we better cultivate solidarity and elevate voices in the face of a more challenging context?

Group 3. Security: Improving Threat Information Sharing and Collaboration With Existing Resources

Each group in the digital rights field collects data. However, we have a hard time sharing this data with each other, and transforming it into valuable information that helps address existing and emerging threats. How do we better share information and coordinate responses in a resilient way that is independent of problematic third parties and protected from changes in the funding landscape and our own capacity issues.  In addition, how do we improve how issues are analyzed so our data is more effective in helping us protect the communities we serve. (For example, should we adopt a cross-regional versus regional approach to threat response?)

Group 4. Security: How to Better Confront Evolving Surveillance, and its Historic Impact on HRDs, in the Face of Inadequate Capabilities

Adversaries are improving their surveillance tactics, from use of increasingly more sophisticated spyware, to sending intelligence agents into diaspora communities. Meanwhile, the digital rights field is still behind on the use of digital forensic technologies to identify what is being used and by who. It also lacks the talent needed to carry out this type of analysis. This context is having a historic, detrimental impact on human rights defenders (HRDs) and their families, who face harsher physical, mental and emotional consequences. It is leading many HRDs to stop their work altogether, and even migrate to other countries. Should we be changing our priorities and strategies, recognizing the limitations of our field and new context? Do we need to cultivate stronger ties with the cyber security field?  What can we do to mitigate this context using the resources available to us?

Group 5. Security: Defending our Organizations from Increasing Cyber Attacks

Digital rights organizations are confronted with an increasingly austere funding climate and limited resources. Yet, there are more sophisticated attacks and threats against civil society organizations that range from phishing to ransomware. At the same time, there is a level of weariness among individuals responsible for the security of their organization, as confronting these threats feels like a never ending game of whack-a-mole where their efforts are too little and not effective.   In addition, this weariness increases as we never take time to celebrate the positive adaptations or successes. This is worsened by the increase of physical attacks, personal intimidation and trans-national repression tactics against our own staff and the communities we serve.

Group 6. Technology: How to Collectively Prepare and Brainstorming Solutions for Emerging Censorship Threats While at Capacity

The censorship threat landscape has changed drastically post-pandemic. Yet, we are so busy handling current, known threats that we barely have time or capacity to understand emerging threats, let alone prepare for them. How do we collectively address what is coming down the road, prepare for these threats, and find solutions. Are there things we can tweak to maximize existing resources or networks? Should we be building in-roads with existing cybersecurity experts outside of our field instead of re-creating the wheel or helping us contextualize the threats?

Group 7. Policy: Influencing Critical Multilateral Decision-Making Opportunities Ensuring that the  Needs of the Most At-Risk Are Included

There will be a lot of decision-making happening at the UN and in other international spaces over the next year (i.e. the cyber OEWG process, cybercrime treaty, Global Digital Compact, WSIS+20, UNESCO platform regulation guidelines, etc.). Not only do we have the lack of capacity in our field to follow everything but most conversations are dominated by INGOs while local grassroots organizations are shut out and/or have limited resources to engage. Meanwhile human rights considerations are still lacking in the Internet infrastructure technologies and technical standards, as there is a huge gap between bridging internet policy issues across the Internet stack. This translates to human rights considerations not being infused on the lower layers of the internet  (e.g. physical infrastructure, protocols, etc.) As an example, if we're talking about content moderation and the liability on tech service providers to block/filter content, how do we think about this issue not just in terms of the implications vis a vis Facebook, Twitter/X, etc., but also the DNS, CDNs, cloud hosting providers, etc.? What should we be doing collectively to take influences these critical multilateral decisions coming down the road and ensure that

Group 8. Policy: How to Collectively Address Local Policy Challenges in the Global Majority that are Causing Major Roadblocks and Oppression

There are Increasing threats to digital rights in the formulation of local cybersecurity and other types of laws that impact everything from the use of encryption and VPNs, to the type of outside funding digital rights organizations can receive. In addition, for folks in “democratic countries,” sanctions continue to affect our collaborations with folks in countries like places in Iran and Cuba. In addition, we are also seeing many defenders in authoritarian places immigrate to other countries or not be able to receive outside financing for their organizations, translating to less people on the ground to defend digital rights.  How do we improve the recognition of digital rights and formalize these protections worldwide. How do we support organizations and individuals residing in countries with punitive laws where they can’t even accept funding from outside their country.

Group 9. Socio-Political: Talking about China, Ukraine & Emerging Threats

China and Russia are having influence across the world because of their use of soft power, and are influential players when it comes to surveillance, censorship and digital attacks. In addition, the war in Ukraine is causing changes in the digital rights landscape, from funding priorities to the very threats HRDs and journalists face. Meanwhile it's become more and more difficult to combat the influence these two entities are having on countries worldwide while their own citizens are experiencing more oppression. What is coming down the pipelines that will affect not just folks in China and Ukraine but in the countries where they exert soft power. What can we do to be better prepared and limit their effects?

Group 10. Socio-Political: Pressuring Corporations to Do Better

Companies are more concerned than ever about the bottom line, leading to decisions that impact human rights and the environment  worldwide. Meanwhile their products continue to have detrimental impacts on human rights worldwide. What can be done to make them be more proactive in their responsibilities to citizens. What can we do to ensure that technology, including our very own, is aware of the impact its having on the environment and human rights.

Group 11. Sustainability of Organizations: Improving Our Financial Resilience in a Austere Climate

While Internet freedom is in decline, our organizations are facing more problems as funding has become more precarious and our needs are larger.. This is complicated by anxieties related to the dependency on a single country to fund digital rights. Are there steps forward to increase the financial resiliency of digital rights organizations? Are there strategies to survive the next decade? What are realistic paths and opportunities for diversification of funding?

Group 12. Sustainability of Organizations: Attracting New Talent

In the last few years, we have seen the increased exodus of top talent from the field, and the inability to attract new talent. We are failing at making the digital rights field known and desirable, while in-demand talent have skills that allow them opportunities in places that can offer better packages. For example, it is not uncommon for technical projects to report their inability to recruit talent at current rates that are low even when compared to other nonprofit fields. What can we do to improve our recruiting efforts? Should we have standardized salary bands? Are there value-added benefits we can offer? Should we be better coordinating outreach to networks where talent gathers?

Group 13. Organizational Health: Reducing the Impact of Burnout on Our Bottom Line

Since the pandemic, employee burnout has become a major threat to our bottom line, and we continue to see the exodus of seasoned talent, including and especially leadership.  Many times we are unable to provide employees with good work conditions or even stable contracts, with many individuals reporting work cultures that are toxic. Are there things organizations can do with the resources they currently have available to improve employee health and better support managers? Are there approaches funders can take within their existing mandates and structures to help?

Group 14. Organizational Health: Addressing Historic Management Challenges

More teams are operating remotely, without inadequate travel budgets to connect and collaborate with other staff or community members. This lack of basic human connection is leading to historic problems on teams, with many managers receiving little support, causing an element of stress for managers. Are there things that can be created to help managers tackle the various management-related issues they are facing.

Group 15. Bringing in New Funders to Digital Rights

There is more fragility and disruption in the funding landscape. From the implementation side, the perception is  that funders are changing long-term priorities for short-term responses, while others appear to be in perpetual strategy mayhem. Meanwhile organizations are facing bigger problems that come with a larger financial burden. Complicating matters, while the world is paying more attention to the critical and increasingly urgent nature of digital rights, the number of funders investing in digital rights is small, with very few new ones in the pipeline.

Group 16. Digital Security: Increasing Capacity Locally

It's become more difficult to develop digital security trainers that can help address the changing threat landscape. There is no simple career path or certification, and even when you become a trainer it requires constant learning requiring resources many times not available - the knowledge barrier has an economic basis. In addition, trajectories are not clear, and opportunities seem to change based on the whim of funding, which is already difficult to fundraise for these efforts. Also, once you start working in Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), it's hard to move to the private sector, meaning more and more people are opting to not pursue this path. How do you improve regional capacity in this context, particularly local digisec capacity building.

Group 17. Digital Security: Supply Chain Issues

We are seeing a lot of work happening recently on the documentation of specific vulnerabilities, tracking down which pieces of tooling are in use where.  Is this documentation actually useful to human rights defenders? Are there better solutions that could improve not just our understanding of what can be done to make tools more useful, but also increase outreach and intake of tools? Meanwhile, keeping these tools up-to-date and getting refreshed funding is a perennial problem, despite the amount of time spent building these tools in a thoughtful way.

How do we tackle this reality through the documentation we are creating? Can documentation be designed in a way that actually helps increase both the number of users AND technical talent with local expertise. In other words, can this documentation also help with community building, serving as a type of pathway to onboard new talent, and also help with the sharing of new ideas and methods to address the technical challenges we are trying to solve?

Group 18. Tools: Building for Technologies in Highly Censored Regions

It's becoming more difficult to build circumvention tools that are effective in highly censored regions, as we encounter more organic and adversary-created roadblocks including censorship measurements. Meanwhile, it's not clear whether we have good channels created for developers to receive feedback from trainers on what is working or isn't working, leading to the question: why aren’t trainers more tightly integrated into development teams to avoid the papercuts in the first place. However, at the same time, more folks are calling for home-grown solutions, which presents other issues: namely the risk of losing years of experience and lessons-learned by more global and established tools

Group 19: Tools: Maintenance, Recreating the Wheel, and Increasing Talent with Local Context Expertise

More mature tools are also facing issues related to maintenance. They range from technical issues, access blocks which prevent users from downloading), lack of perennial funding to keep them up-to-date, and even lack of capacity (including volunteers/community). Meanwhile, there is a growing demand for more home-grown solutions to address different contexts. This leads us to the question: How do we balance the maintenance required of existing tools and avoid re-creating the wheel while bringing in and elevating new voices, particularly technical talent that understands local contexts? In addition, and most importantly, what are and how do we address the real technical challenges associated with maintenance.

Daily Summit Agendas

Day One (Sep 15)
Time	Activity
7:30:00 AM	Registration - Coffee - Breakfast
9:00:00 AM	Opening + Welcome
9:15:00 AM	Culture Setting
9:35:00 AM	Overview of the Field
10:05:00 AM	Purpose and Objectives
10:10:00 AM	Networking Activity
10:25:00 AM	Contest - Organizational Health
10:45:00 AM	Coffee Break
11:00:00 AM	Introductions of Exercises Instructions for First Workshop
11:05:00 AM	Workshop 1: Context, Threats and Trends
12:05:00 AM	Coffee Break
12:20:00 PM	Introduction to Second Workshop: Team Roles
12:25:00 PM	Workshop 2: Identification of the Impact of Threats Now and in the Future
1:00:00 PM	Sharing - Report Back
1:30:00 PM	Wrap-up of the Day
1:35:00 PM	Lunch

Day Two (Sep 16)
Time	Activity
7:30:00 AM	Registration - Coffee - Breakfast
9:00:00 AM	Opening
9:10:00 AM	TCU Recap
9:15:00 AM	House Rules and Resources
9:25:00 AM	Day Program Presentation
9:30:00 AM	Context and Objectives
9:45:00 AM	Workshop 3: Challenge Identification Based on Threats
10:00:00 AM	Serious Game on Challenges
10:15:00 AM	Mini Workshop 4: Conceptualization
10:45:00 AM	Workshop 5: Ideation of Solutions
11:15:00 AM	Coffee Break
11:25:00 PM	Workshop 6: Idea Viability
12:00:00 PM	Process Sharing
12:30:00 PM	Workshop 7: Collective Action Plan Drafts
1:10:00 PM	Sharing + Questions
1:40:00 AM	Lunch

Day Three (Sep 17)
Time	Activity
7:30:00 AM	Registration - Coffee - Breakfast
9:00:00 AM	Welcome and Recap
9:10:00 AM	House Rules and Resources
9:20:00 AM	Collaboration Market
10:15:00 AM	Sharing
10:45:00 AM	Feedback and Pre-Conclusions
11:00:00 AM	Coffee Break
11:15:00 AM	Collaboration Market
12:00:00 AM	Conclusions on Challenges
12:30:00 AM	What Comes Next in 2024
13:00:00 PM	Gratitude Exercise