September 5 2026 Agenda

Previous Day ◀   Day Two of the 2026 Global Gathering Agenda   ➤ Next Day

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!!! Please note that the agenda is still being updated !!!!

September 5 Pre-GG Morning Activities | 9:00 - 12:00

These activities occur in the morning, before the start of the Global Gathering

	Satellite Events and RSVP-Required Workshops
	Each morning, we provide space for private satellite events and a handful of workshops that are open to participants, but require you to register before the start of the event. Currently accepting RSVPs for: 09:00 - 12:00: Latin American Breakfast by FAULAC ‼️ All these workshops have reached capacity! Only individuals that registered AND received a confirmation email can attend! ‼️ 09:30 - 12:00 De-weaponizing Tech -A Design from the Margins Workshop 09:00 - 12:00: Hands-on Internet Shutdown Salon: Building Off-Grid Communication Networks and Low-Fi Approaches 09:00 - 12:00: Journalism Security Salon 10:00 - 12:00: Making Sense of Chaos:  Lessons Direct from Washington DC

	Wellbeing Morning Activities
	Wellbeing Morning Activities take place offsite, before the start of the GG each day, and do not require prior registration. You can also volunteer to host a Wellbeing Morning Activity by following these instructions. 9:30 - 11:00: Sound Bath Grounding 🔔🌿

September 5 GG Activities | 12:00 - 18:00

	12:00 - 13:00 | Networking Hour and Featured Meetups
	Each day we host a networking hour at the venue. Take advantage of the many food vendors we have while meeting folks in the digital rights space! This includes a handful of meetups that take place in the venue.
Where	Meetup
	Internet Shutdown Meetup
	Caribbean + Diaspora Meet Up
	South Asian Digital Liberation Meetup

📣 Please note that Booths start at 13:00 and Circles start at 13:30

	Booths You can find detailed Booth descriptions at the bottom of this page. Each booth at the venue is numbered. The venue maps on site at the venue will help direct you toward booths by number.
	13:00 - 15:00			15:30 - 17:30
Location	Name	Run by		Name	Run by
Booth 3 APC Village	Local Services for Communities	APC		WRP and FIRN ecosystem	APC
Booth 4a
Booth 4b	Digital Citizenship Helpline: Emergency Digital Security Support	Digital Citizenship Organization		Digital Security Helpline - Safety Clinic	Access Now
Booth 5	Lockdown Systems	Lockdown Systems		Dash Chat	Dash Chat
Booth 6 Regional Perspectives Village B	RightsLine- Navigating Digital Security and Securing Rights Online	Software Freedom Law Center, India, RightsLine		Unveiling Cyber-Surveillance - Case Studies from South Asia	Digital Rights Foundation
Booth 7	Amnezia VPN	Amnezia VPN		Amnezia VPN	Amnezia VPN
Booth 8	MaadiX	Maadix		Cloud68.co - Open Source Managed Hosting for Values-Aligned Teams	Cloud68.co
Booth 9 Secure Comms Village	Air Messenger	Phoenix R&D/Air Messenger		Secure Comms: What’s Working, What’s Missing?	Phoenix R&D/Air Messenger & OKthanks
Booth 10	Sex Work and Deepfakes - A Report by ESWA	ESWA		AI Accountability Network	Pulitzer Center
Booth 11	25 years of Greenhost: Introducing Steward Owned Infrastructure and SoSuite	Greenhost		25 years of Greenhost: introducing Steward Owned Infrastructure and SoSuite	Greenhost
Booth 12	Human Constanta & Friends: Digital Rights, Cybersecurity, and Pancakes	Human Constanta, Digital Freedoms Lab, Legal Hub, Cyber Beaver, Legal Club		Freedom Forge: White-Label VPN for Creators & Digital Rights Organizations. Protect Internet Freedom and Earn.	Freedom Forge
Booth 13	Open-Source Grants Management	Simula Lab LTD		The De|Center Booth	De|Center
Booth 14 Circle 7	Get Funded: Your Tool. Our Grant. A Freer Internet.	DT Institute		Open Access Curation Lab	University of the People, Open Access Week
Booth 15	Nasnet Panel: Building a Digital Infrastructure that Can't Be Shut Down	Holistic Resilience, NASNET Connect		Behind the Block: Exiled Media, Circumvention & the Fight for Audiences	The Fix Media
Booth 16	Open Briefing Holistic Security Support	Open Briefing		Digital Security Collective	Digital Security Collective
Booth 17				From Shutdowns to Disinformation: Frontline Data for Safer Digital Spaces	Digihub Africa
Booth 18	Bodies, Data, Territories: Transhackfeminisms from Abya Yala	Universitat de Girona andTécnicas Rudas, Colectiva Ada HackFem Ai - YouTube, HackFem Ai		DATAGOV Lab: Transfeminist Digital Care & Infrastructural Inequalities	University of Amsterdam, DATAGOV
Booth 19	RightsCon On The Road	Access Now/RightsCon		RightsCon On The Road	Access Now/RightsCon
Booth 21	Outline	Outline		Spreading Butter in the Wild (This is a structured activity. Be sure to arrive at the booth at 15:30 to participate)	Guardian Project
Booth 22 Circumvention Tech Village	The Onion Odyssey Cryptographic Universe	Tor Project & Guardian Project (Orbot, Onion Browser)		The Onion Odyssey Cryptographic Universe	Tor Project & Guardian Project (Orbot, Onion Browser)
Booth 57 (Spyware Village)	Meet Different Organizations Working on Spyware	CDT Europe , Zoquelabs, EDRI		Meet Different Organizations Working on Spyware	Amnesty TechFundacion Aceso
Booth 79 (Calyx Village)	Alternatives to big tech attestation with CalyxOS	Calyx Institute, CalyxOS		User Feedback for CalyxOS	Calyx Institute, CalyxOS
Booth 80	Library Freedom Project	Library Freedom Project		Línea de Ayuda: Collective Care Against Digital Violence	Ser Valiente en Red
Booth 81 Regional Perspectives Village A	Revista Abismo: Stories Beyond the News Cycle	Revista Abismo		Colnodo: Empowering Communities Through Technology	Colnodo
Booth 82	Palestine Booth	Independent		Palestine Booth	Independent

September 5 Global Gathering After Hours | 18:00 - 21:00

	Calyx Institute Karaoke Party!
	Time: 18:00 Location: Main Stage Get your song list ready and come prepared for the return of karaoke at the Global Gathering!!! This is the time to unleash your inner entertainer and let us see your moves!

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	Other Evening Socials
	Digital Rights Game Night Time: 18:30 Location: Meet at reserved picnic tables in venue near food vendors. Join us for a game night featuring a variety of digital security and digital rights games! Bring your own games to playtest and get feedback, or play one of ours. Whether you're an avid gamer, a digital security trainer, or this is your first time picking up a deck of cards, you are welcome to join
If you would like to organize an evening social to add to thist list, please follow these instructions. This can be dinners, hangouts, or visits to nearby locations. In some cases, we may be able to accommodate your request in the venue itself.

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Village and Circle Descriptions

Villages are "all-day hubs" focused on specific topics. They house both Booths and Circles.

Village	Run by	Village Description
APC Village	Association for Progressive Communications	The APC Village is hosted by the Association for Progressive Communications and offers a space to explore feminist, human rights–based approaches to technology. Visit to learn about APC’s global initiatives, connect with network members, and share strategies for digital justice. The APC Village's nature is one of multiple voices, constant creation of alternatives, actions and presence, distributed across local regions and globally nurturing visions for the future.
Calyx Village	The Calyx Institute	Visit the Calyx Village to meet the team behind the Calyx Institute, their partners, and exchange ideas on privacy and digital freedom. It’s a welcoming hub for learning and connection.
Circumvention Tech Village	The Tor Project, Guardian Project	The Circumvention Village is a hub for practitioners and researchers working on circumvention technology to connect, exchange ideas, and explore collaboration. It also welcomes newcomers, offering a space to learn about projects, and get answers to pressing questions
Digital Rights Village	Resident NGO, TCU	This is a space for security practitioners and trainers to discuss securing our communities from digital threats from both the ground and the tech
Ecosystem Resilience		This space host various conversations meant to address health and resilience issues in the digital rights ecosystem, and the organizations and networks that call it home.
Latin American Village		Come here perspectives, developments, and more happening in Latin America.
Regional Perspectives		Learn about digital rights from numerous regional perspectives.
Secure Communications Village	Phoenix R & D (Air Messenger), Okthanks	Help advance the secure communications ecosystem by sharing your thoughts, lessons, and knowledge. Notably, research is being conduct this GG to address what people want to see in secure communications apps. Visit the booth, or take the five minute survey to share your thoughts!
Spyware Village	Amnesty Tech, EFF	Come meet the many individuals, groups and projects working on spyware. This is a great space to ask questions, share your experiences, or stay updated on research and developments

Circle and/or Meetup Title	Description
AI Said It's Inevitable. We Have Questions.	What becomes possible when we stop asking whether we are for or against AI? This Circle creates space to question the narrative of AI as inevitable and instead explore the choices, boundaries, and forms of agency available to us. Through feminist, decolonial, and community-rooted perspectives, we'll examine how power shapes technology and share practices that help us collectively imagine and create technological futures rooted in care, accountability, and justice.|
Algorithmic Harms and Activist Resilience: Lessons from the Netherlands and Spain	This circle builds a critical conversation around a new research project that examines how AI-embedded systems in the Netherlands and Spain are actively harming social justice activism, specifically targeting migrant rights, Palestine solidarity, gender justice, anti-racism, and climate work amidst rising far-right polarization. Participants will share and analyze how these algorithmic restrictions may be showing up in their contexts, and collectively workshop potential strategies to counteract them.
Backing Up for the Machine? Independent Data Preservation in the Age of AI Scraping	As governments delete public datasets and archives scramble to rescue them, a new tension appears: the data we work hard to preserve becomes training fuel for AI. The Internet Archive is being scraped at scale, Mozilla's Data Collective draws on rescued datasets, and the line between "saving knowledge" and "feeding the machine" blurs. This circle gathers people who hold the problem (organizations whose data is at risk) and people who hold the practice (archivists and infrastructure builders) to compare backup protocols - independent versus institutional - and confront what we are really preserving for, and for whom.
Beyond Big Tech: Censorship, Rights, and Platform Accountability	Participants will examine the impacts of opaque content moderation systems and collectively brainstorm and develop strategic legal, policy, advocacy, and organizing responses to growing platform power and digital exclusion. Participants will also explore the growing impact of governmental policies, social media bans, account removals and visibility suppression on democratic participation, cultural organizing, healthcare access, and freedom of expression.
Can Signal Become Phishing-Resistant?	Targeted phishing campaigns against journalists, activists, and civil society increasingly abuse legitimate Signal account recovery and device-linking workflows rather than exploiting software vulnerabilities. In this session, we will examine the current threat landscape and explore potential improvements to account security that could significantly reduce the risk of remote account takeover.
Caribbean + Diaspora Meet Up	This meetup brings together human rights defenders from the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora community. We will discuss how we can create "digital safety in numbers" across our region and share examples and stories of our digital rights experience. We will also explore mutual support and collaborative resources.
Co-Creating the Change: Pathways to Sustained Adoption of Privacy-Forward Technologies
Co-Designing Practical AI Bias Detection Tools with Journalists in the Global South	AI tools are increasingly being used to generate and reshape news content, creating new and urgent challenges for fact checking and bias mitigation, especially during election periods. This Circle will explore how journalists, fact checkers, and technologists can collaboratively design practical tools to detect cultural and contextual bias in AI generated stories, with a focus on supporting election coverage in low resource and multilingual environments. Participants will share experiences from their contexts and give direct input to help shape an early prototype of Bias Lens, an open source fact checking tool being developed through Baraza Media Lab as part of a Mozilla Fellowship.
Countering Disinformation Meetup	Come meet colleagues from across the disinformation frontlines. We'll share learnings, tactics, and war stories - as we seek to learn from one another on what works best, and what can inadvertently backfire in the fight against disinformation.
Deleted, Demoted, Disappeared: Now What?	What happens when artists lose access to the platforms that shape visibility, income, and cultural participation? In this collaborative discussion, Don't Delete Art and Repro Uncensored invite participants to explore the growing challenges of censorship, deplatforming, and algorithmic suppression for creatives online, and to imagine collective systems across regions that can reduce bottlenecks and provide effect support.
Digital Territory: Rethinking Security for Environmental Defenders in Latin America	Environmental and territorial rights defenders face digital threats that existing security models weren't built for. This circle brings together frontline knowledge to co-build a situated understanding of digital risk, considering context, organization, and power.
Digital Rights X Climate Justice: Meet Up!	Connect with participants working at the intersection of climate justice and digital rights. Participants will share updates on their work and lessons learned; celebrate wins, and explore ways to better collaborate across borders. Participants will also take stock of global developments, and chart steps forward. Anyone engaged in digital climate justice is welcomed—whether combating climate disinformation, advancing sustainable digital infrastructure, protecting climate defenders, or addressing migration challenges linked to climate change.
Digital Transnational Repression: Connecting Across Regions	This meetup brings together practitioners working on digital transnational repression (TNR) to exchange experiences, compare emerging trends, and strengthen collaboration across regions. While TNR often appears as a series of isolated incidents affecting specific countries or communities, many of these cases reflect common tactics, shared methods, and recurring patterns employed by different states against diaspora and exile communities. Recent exchanges among practitioners highlighted the value of looking beyond individual country contexts. Thus, we hope to do just that, and identify common patterns, exchange practical lessons, compare tactics, and build stronger connections and continued collaborations across networks, regions and organizations.
Driving Action From Collective Alerting	Protection providers and security experts often spend their limited capacity urgently translating the latest threats into alerts that are relevant to the diverse communities they serve so they can independently identify and mitigate those threats or seek support when they can't. But, affected individuals often have trouble acting on these safety alerts because they may not understand what they mean, not know whether they apply to them, not grasp the risk level, not know where to get assistance, or lack the time/resources to take the suggested action. This circle will chart a path to a future where threat intelligence is rapidly and easily transformed into a range of alerts that allow diverse at-risk communities make informed security decision. Participants will explore what is necessary to make alerts actionable, identify the parts can/not be adapted and reused across different communities, and explore strategies and tactics for reducing duplication, and better connecting and building on other efforts.
East African Idea Jam: How Do We Move Beyond Inherited Western Assumptions and Design for East African Realities?	Trust in many African contexts is relational and collective, while most circumvention frameworks are designed around Western, individual models of trust. Join us to brainstorm what building trust and scaling circumvention solutions for East African communities can look like via an ideation jam! Together we will discuss what makes a safety tool desirable and sticky enough that communities at risk keeps using it, and how much of that is carried by branding, language, and local framing rather than the tool itself. Participants will also share thoughts on what a successful, trust-based campaign could look like.
Escuela Común: Technology for Autonomy	We support communities in resistance to build, manage, and sustain their own digital infrastructure, using free software, technological autonomy, digital security, and collaboration across territories.
Exploring Models and Best Practices of Building Sustainable Tech Collective Infrastructure	Participants will explore existing collectives that have lasted the test of time, such as Framasoft, May First, and Riseup, as well as exploring that did not last. Looking at different case studies, we will uncover best practices and lessons learned. We will also imagine what an effective tech collective serving defenders should be like, especially for those working in the most repressive environments.
From Pilot to Programme: A Peer Clinic for Practical and Scalable Funding Strategies	New initiatives often need evidence before they can attract funding, but they also need funding to generate that evidence. Starting with a real-life case study, this Circle will invite participants to share and compare practical strategies for moving from small pilots towards sustainable programs.
From Shutdowns to Silent Control: Identifying Emerging Digital Authoritarian Practices	Since 2022, governments in Central Asia have increasingly shifted from visible internet shutdowns toward more targeted and less detectable forms of digital control, including selective blocking, throttling, platform pressure, cyberattacks, and regulatory restrictions. This Circle will use findings from Central Asian monitoring made by MediaNet team as a starting point for participants to compare developments across regions, identify emerging trends, and collectively map priorities for future documentation, research, and collaboration.
Group Therapy?: Being an Organizational Leader During a Polycrisis	Leading an organization in the current landscape requires courage, adaptability, compassion, and a clear sense of purpose. It also requires having strong operations and an ability to be creative in the face of limited resources. This circle will bring together organizational leaders to explore practical strategies for navigating adversity and limited resources while remaining focused on mission, people, and impact. Its also meant to build solidarity and knowledge share around practical wisdom. Whether you are an established executive, emerging leader, board member, or community advocate, this gathering offers valuable insights and meaningful connections to help you lead with clarity and purpose—especially when times are tough.
Hackear y Crear: Cesafíos y Estrategias Feministas Para Enfrentar Las Infraestructuras Tecnopolíticas Que Amenazan a las Democracias en América Latina	Este Circlo busca propiciar un diálogo amplio entre los movimientos feministas y los de defensa de los derechos digitales, con el fin de analizar cómo las infraestructuras tecnopolíticas impulsan nuevas formas de violencia de género facilitada por la tecnología (TFGBV, por sus siglas en inglés) que afectan a movimientos, especialmente en contextos políticos cada vez más hostiles. La discusión partirá de investigaciones recientes de organizaciones feministas y fondos de mujeres de ocho países de América Latina y el Caribe, que formará la base para examinar cómo este tipo de violencia afecta la participación democrática, e identificando características únicas y padrones. Las participantes también explorarán estrategias de cuidado colectivo, resiliencia digital y resistencia frente a estos desafíos.
Holistic Security for Immigration Rapid Response Work in the US	Across the US, the drastic increase in immigration enforcement activity has been met with an unprecedented development of hyperlocal rapid-response networks. These folks are doing the frontline work of monitoring, resisting, and documenting. Holistic community safety is essential in these continued rapid-response efforts. This circle will bring together individuals and organizations who are leading these security efforts to identify common challenges, share effective strategies, and coordinate on service delivery.
How Spyware is Being Tackled in Different Parts of the World + Intl Solidarity and Resistance	Explore how spyware is being tackled across different regions and the diverse approaches communities are taking. Faciilators will share case studies from their communities so that can participants can learn from examples on the ground. Participants will also have the opportunity to share their own experiences, highlight the work they are doing, and discuss the challenges they are encountering. Most importantly, the circle will create space to identify opportunities for further collaboration and knowledge exchange across regions, helping to strengthen solidarity and collective learning, and potentially identify trends.
How to Stop Social Media Companies from Financing Threat Actors	Threat actors are increasingly turning to social media platforms as a source of revenue. Platforms have monetization policies in place to prevent the abuse of their monetization services, but as with content moderation, their enforcement leaves a lot to be desired. In this workshop, we will catch you up on latest trends in social media monetization and teach you how to check whether threat actors in your country are earning money from social media companies.
Illegal Trade in Personal Data: Presentation of a Report and Stories to Raise Awareness	In Latin America, there is an illegal market for personal data operating on Telegram, which appears to have links to public databases in countries across the region. The circle will begin the discussion by sharing key findings of a recent investigation into this phenomenon, including case studies from Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Participants will discuss and strategize around the most effective narratives for disseminating this type of information, and educating them on their rights and the promotion of digital security.
Internet Shutdown Meetup	This meetup is meant to bring together individuals actively working on Internet shutdowns, helping folks get to know each other across regions, disciplines, and areas of focus.
Internet Shutdown Contingency Planning Help Desk (+ shutdown circumvention trainer meetup)	Come create an Internet shutdown contingency plan driven by your needs, taking into account your threat model and capabilities. Participants will be introduced to the BRACE (Building Readiness and Circumvention in Emergencies) Framework, which includes a curriculum, methodology, and trainer-ready framework, designed to help CSOs build customized contingency plans for outages. Come make a plan for yourself, or if you're a shutdown circumvention trainer, come to connect with other trainers and talk about shutdown circumvention!
Knowing What You're Looking for: AI Slop and OSINT Work in Conflict Zones	How can we maintain the integrity of OSINT work when our processes and, increasingly, our own eyes can betray us? This Circle invites OSINT practitioners across disciplines—journalists, lawyers, digital rights defenders, academics, and beyond—to share their experiences navigating AI-generated content and disinformation in conflict zones, where synthetic media has increasingly been weaponized to distort documentation and accountability efforts. Participants are encouraged to bring examples and case studies for breakout groups, where we'll swap operational strategies for identifying and mitigating AI slop in our work.
Lessons Learned from Iran's Shutdown for Anti-censorship Tool Developers | Tor Project, Guardian	During the long Internet shutdown in Iran this year we saw how people were able to reach the Internet using creative ways. From crowdsourcing snowflake proxy hosting by the Iranian diaspora to DNS tunneling transports, we found new ways to use the limited amount of services reachable on the national allowlist. This session will be a space for anti-censorship tool developers to meet up, share what we've learned from the Internet shutdown, how to weigh risks vs benefits to best prepare for the ongoing and future situations in Iran and beyond.
Lights in the Tunnel: Co-Creating an Accountability Framework for VPN Transparency	Participants will discuss and begin drafting a community-informed methodology for assessing VPN transparency and accountability. This includes what the methodology should look like, key policies or practices that it will assess, and the selection of VPN providers that should be evaluated. The Circle aims to strengthen and raise the bar for enforceable standards of platform accountability in the VPN ecosystem.
Living in the Crosshairs: Operational Survival Under Ubiquitous Surveillance	When total digital evasion is impossible, how do frontline defenders manage the day-to-day reality of targeted targeting? This highly collaborative Circle moves past standard baseline tools to share hard-won operational strategies, psychological coping mechanisms, and risk-mitigation tactics for working under unlawful state surveillance. We will map out collective cross-regional wisdom on moving from digital paralysis to resilient, ongoing activism.
Navigating AI Use and Ethics in CSOs	The use of AI tools, specially LLMs, seems unavoidable, almost common sense. But considering all the societal negative effects, from environmental concerns, to privacy, through labor and gender, how can CSO implement guardrails to the use of such tools that align with their strategy and ethics?
Practical Security and Safety Strategies for Events and Community Spaces	Participants will explore and share practical strategies for ensuring the safety and security of events and community spaces, particularly in contexts with limited resources. At a time when gathering together has never been more important, many organizations are navigating shrinking teams, tighter budgets, and increasing demands. This Circle will provide an opportunity to exchange experiences, identify creative approaches, and collectively build knowledge that helps us continue creating spaces where people can come together safely, securely, and confidently.
Refining Mobile Experience for Protection Under Emergency Circumstances — A CalyxOS Community Workshop
Running and Using Local LLMs With Hardware You Already Own	A local LLM (Large Language Model) is an AI model that runs on your own computer or private server instead of sending your prompts to a cloud service like ChatGPT. Join this Circle to learn how to build and use a local LLM on older hardware—such as a five-year-old gaming desktop—making AI both more private and more sustainable. We'll start by sharing our setups (if you have one), including hardware specifications, what works well, what doesn't, and how we use local LLMs within their limitations. From there, we'll explore practical tips, configurations, and real-world use cases. This Circle is focused exclusively on local, self-hosted LLMs running on widely available consumer hardware. Some discussions will be technical, but no technical expertise is required if you're primarily interested in learning about the capabilities and use cases.
Spill the Tea! What Digital Threats Are You Seeing?	Come share what digital threats you are seeing right now! What feels new, what keeps coming back, and what patterns are showing up across regions? This circle is a relaxed space to compare notes on digital threats and attacks in different communities and contexts. Activists can share what they are experiencing or hearing from others, while digital security supporters and trainers can share patterns they notice through support work. Together, we will explore how to make these observations useful for HRDs, and exchange practical strategies for facing these threats in different local contexts.
Spyware and AI Salon (part 1) Mapping and challenges	A space for researchers, practitioners, and experts exploring the intersection of spyware and artificial intelligence. In Part 1, we’ll map the current landscape, examine emerging developments, and discuss the key challenges facing researchers today in regards to AI. Join the conversation to share perspectives, identify gaps, exchange research and lessons learned, and build a clearer understanding of where spyware and AI are heading.
Starlink Best Practices	Facilitators of this Circle have been documenting the threat model, risks, and mitigations around the use of Starlink without detection. Come hear about what they have documented, share any lessons you have learned, and collectively discuss risks or mitigations.
Strengthening Rapid Response Efforts to Censorship Events	Join this session to discuss challenges, needs, and ideas for strengthening global collaboration on rapid response to emerging censorship events around the world. Participants will also learn about OONI's tools and methods for censorship rapid response.
South Asian Digital Liberation Meetup	This meetup brings together human rights defenders from South Asia to connect, exchange experiences, strengthen networks, and explore collaborative strategies for advancing digital rights, accountability, and justice across the region and beyond. Participants will also discuss and strategize around the region's unique digital landscape - as one of the largest markets for global digital platforms, where some of the egregious cases of digital violence have taken place (disinformation, hate speech, and online extremism). Together, participants will share insights and identify opportunities for collective action.
Spyware & Investigative Journalism: Share, Learn & Ask	A space for journalists either covering spyware or worried about spyware being used against them. Participants will  discuss trends and challenges, exchange experiences, and ask questions. Whether you’re new to reporting on spyware or have years of experience, or are wondering how to protect yourself from it, this is a space to learn from one another, connect with researchers and practitioners, and stay up to date with a rapidly changing landscape.
Tooling Up - A Collaborative Bottom-Up Approach to Building Meaningful Software and Equipment Stacks for Local Services and Community-Centred Connectivity	Join this circle to shape a new community network building tool the "Community Box," a hardware and software solution, part of the Local Networks (LocNet) initiative, focused on supporting community-led and community-centered internet connectivity and infrastructure. Directly enhance the open database with your ideas, experiences and technologies, learn more about this amazing project, and directly support local communities trying to plan local tech stacks. This is also a great space for developers of other relevant services, such as offline/Internet shutdown messaging platforms, to find out how to collaborate with LocNet and Community Box.
We See, We Archive, We Remember: Preserving Digital Evidence Against Erasure	Participants will discuss how public-interest information can be preserved when states, platforms, or legal systems make evidence disappear. Drawing on archival work from Hong Kong, China, Iran, Palestine, and other contexts, the discussion will focus on censorship, surveillance, transnational repression, platform takedowns, and the preservation of digital evidence of human rights violations. Participants will compare practical approaches to resilient preservation while examining safety, ethics, verification, access, and long-term stewardship.
When the World Moves On: Breaking the Silence After Crackdowns and Elections	The circle brings together participants to explore why "post-crisis silence" happens after elections, and collectively identify ways to sustain documentation, communication, and action beyond peak moments of repression. It is in these quiet periods after the crisis that evidence is lost, accountability weakens, and cycles of abuse are allowed to repeat. Strengthening our ability to act after crisis moments is critical to building resilient movements and ensuring that violations are not forgotten.
What Does a Girl Gotta Do Around Here to Get People to Download the Tool Before the Internet Shuts Down?	Okay, seriously though - We've been asking communities around the world for the past one year what they need when the internet shuts down, and one of the biggest challenges, no surprise, is adoption. So come, contribute your perspective, and jam with us on creative solutions to overcome common adoption challenges together xD
You Own Infrastructure! Great! How to Protect It from the Bad of the Internet With the Help of Scenarios	It is all fun to install and own your own hardware. But then you connect it to the internet. Suddenly, you are exposed to a wide range of risks. Automated bots are constantly scanning your infrastructure. Automated account take-over attempts show up in your logs. Your end user is complaning the software is outdated. How do you update it? Then, one day, you receive your first abuse report or cease-and-desist letter, and while replying to that letter a notification comes in. Your servers are down, you are under a DDoS attack. What does it mean to be a responsible hosting provider, and what does it take to deal with the darker side of the internet?

Booth Descriptions

Booth	Run by	Booth Description
25 years of Greenhost: introducing Steward Owned Infrastructure and SoSuite	Greenhost	It is an exciting year for Greenhost, with 25 years of history and lots of news on the horizon. Internet infrastructure is getting more complex on a yearly basis, and although we are promoters of self-hosting, it is not always a viable option. Was it possible 10 years ago to run your own mail server? Nowadays dealing with block lists, allow lists and spam has become a science in itself. Rather choosing for big platforms from Amazon (AWS) or Microsoft (Office 365/Azure), Greenhost provides a wide range of competing services–and the best of it–it is all steward owned. Please visit our stand to learn more about what Steward Owned means for us and you and learn about the next things at Greenhost such as SoSuite: our answer to big-tech collaboration software (Office 365, Google Docs). We are also happy to introduce you to Soverin and LeafCloud, two very aligned organizations we work closely with.
AI Accountability Network	Pulitzer Center	Join the AI Accountability Network Booth to talk about investigating AI. We'll have stickers and info about about trainings, workshops, grants, and other ways to connect with other journalists and researchers!
Air Messenger	Phoenix R&D/Air Messenger	Air is a new secure messenger that caters to the needs of at-risk users. Air is based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol and combines end-to-end encryption, low metadata, and decentralization/federation. At the last Global Gatherings we shared how we have been building Air, this year we can finally open the doors for the community to start using Air. To give an overview about Air: Air is a free and easy-to-use secure messaging app created by Phoenix R&D, a research & development company. - Send end-to-end encrypted texts, photos, videos, and documents.|- Create group chats with friends and family. Feel free to bring your coworkers too. - Air doesn't collect sensitive information like your phone number or email address, and doesn't store metadata, like who you talk to and when. - Air is open-source, and is based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol and open standards. - Air is designed, built, and hosted in the European Union (EU). Air is not supported by investors or advertisers.
Amnezia VPN	Amnezia VPN	At our booth, we'll share the Amnezia ecosystem and what we've learned from working in places with heavy internet restrictions. We'll show Amnezia VPN and our research on VPN blocking, DPI filtering, and censorship in countries like Russia, Iran, and Myanmar and how we adapt to keep access working. We'll also present Amnezia Pulse, our project for tracking internet shutdowns, along with other open-source privacy tools we're building. Most of all, we want the booth to be a place to meet people, exchange ideas and real-world experience and, of course, share some Amnezia merch.
Behind the Block: Exiled Media, Circumvention & the Fight for Audiences	The Fix Media	Independent media in exile are a frontline of digital freedom, and The Fix Media works to keep them reaching audiences behind blocks and bans. At our booth, we share fresh insights on the resilience of exiled media around the world, along with success stories from our own practice. Stop by for a free 5-minute tech stack audit and cast your vote in our interactive game, Dictators vs. Exiled Media. We're here to combine the knowledge in the room with our own expertise and to find new connections.
Bodies, Data, Territories: Transhackfeminisms from Abya Yala	Universitat de Girona and Técnicas RudasColectiva Ada HackFem Ai - YouTube HackFem Ai	Discover transhackfeminist practices and imaginaries from Abya Yala. Through audiovisual capsules, collective materials, and conversations, this booth shares voices and experiences from 57 face-to-face interviews with women and non-binary hackfeminists, Indigenous communicators, community technologists, digital security practitioners, and feminist activists who are reimagining technology—from ancestral intelligences to artificial intelligence. “Abuela Ruda” will offer digital security consultations for any “granddaughters” who need them, and we will host a short session on Infrastructures from the South, exploring collective alternatives to dominant technological infrastructures. Come exchange experiences, imagine other technological futures, and contribute to our collective transhackfeminist zine.
Calyx Institute	Calyx Institute CalyxOS	The Calyx Institute defends digital privacy, advances connectivity, and strives for a future where everyone has access to the resources and tools they need to remain securely connected. We are keen to connect with at-risk communities in need for digital privacy and security tools, our peer free and open-source software (FOSS) developers, and digital security educators and researchers. Our work focuses on building CalyxOS, a privacy-respecting Android operating system, Seedvault, a FOSS tool to back up and restore your Android devices, and other resources to help people protect their own data. Come chat with us! Tell us what features and tools you need the most in your mobile experience.
Cloud68.co - Open Source Managed Hosting for Values-Aligned Teams	Cloud68.co	Get a feel for what European-based, open source Managed Hosting looks like in practice. Targeted to small and medium teams and organisations that are tired of Big Tech's abusive practices and want digital infrastructure that matches their values. Platforms that cover file storage & sharing, calendars, real-time document editing, video conferencing, team password management (and more), all backed by human-powered migration workflows and tech support. Whether you're just starting to think about a move or already in the middle of one, come chat. Significant discounts for Global Gathering participants!
Colnodo: Empowering Communities Through Technology	Colnodo	Visit Colnodo's booth to discover how we advance digital rights, digital security, community networks, and meaningful connectivity across Colombia. Explore our publications and community-led initiatives, connect with our work, and learn how technology can empower communities, strengthen people, and drive positive social change.
Dash Chat	Dash Chat	Stay Connected When Systems Fail.
DATAGOV Lab: Transfeminist Digital Care & Infrastructural Inequalities	University of Amsterdam, DATAGOV	Step into the DATAGOV Lab booth and discover how infrastructures have the power to reproduce structural inequalities. Follow a self-guided journey: start with a wall of fieldwork photographs and stories from Brazil and the EU, then browse zines and the book Transfeminist Digital Care, which traces responses to technology-facilitated gender-based violence and proposes grassroots understandings of infrastructural inequalities and digital sovereignty. Along the way, respond to prompt cards on how regulatory data infrastructures quietly reshape governance — through biometrics, digital identity, health and education technologies. Whether you're curious about digital sovereignty, community-owned infrastructures, or algorithmic governance, Professor Stefania Milan and Postdoctoral Researcher Giulia Campaioli from the DATAGOV project at the University of Amsterdam will be on hand for informal conversation. No facilitation needed — just come, look, read, and share your own reflections.
The De|Center Booth	De|Center	The De|Center booth is for people who know technology is political, and want to stop it from being weaponized against the communities already carrying the heaviest harms. Come learn about Design from the Margins, our upcoming reports and research, and also how you can use our data or methods. Grab some swag, snacks, meet the team, learn about the org and find ways to support and collaborate!
Digital Citizenship Helpline: Emergency Digital Security Support	Digital Citizenship Organization	At the Helpline Clinic, we provide confidential, on-the-spot support with digital security and online safety, delivered by Digital Citizenship's emergency response team. We help with urgent problems compromised accounts, suspicious devices, online harassment, or surveillance concerns working through them with you one-on-one, and we welcome anyone who simply wants to learn how to better protect themselves and their community. We offer support in Arabic, French, and English.
Digital Security Helpline - safety Clinic	Access Now	The Digital Security Helpline offers expert guidance on online safety, privacy, and security for individuals and organizations. Whether you're dealing with hacking, harassment, data breaches, or just want to strengthen your digital defenses. At the booth, visitors can: Get one-on-one advice from digital security experts Learn simple steps to secure devices and accounts Explore tools for privacy, encryption, and safe communication Ask questions about real-life digital threats and how to respond
Digital Security Collective	Digital Security Collective	The Digital Security Collective (DSC) is a newly-formed alliance of digital security practitioners and providers working to improve coordination, response, and support to US-based movements and organizations. We are working to develop shared services to ensure resources are available to thousands of organizations vulnerable to surveillance, harassment, and digital threats. We know a lot of our members and prospective members plan to attend GG this year, and we'd love to say hello and share more about our work.
Freedom Forge: White-Label VPN for Creators & Digital Rights Organizations. Protect Internet Freedom and Earn.	Freedom Forge	Freedom Forge is the new home for the projects you already know as VPN Socket and VPN Generator. We’ve brought them together under one brand focused on building practical tools for internet freedom - helping organizations and communities stay connected, independent, and resilient online. VPN Socket lets creators, media, and digital rights organizations launch a fully branded VPN in just two weeks. We handle servers, payments, support, and maintenance - partners focus on promotion and keep the majority of profits. VPN Generator offers a simple interface to create a free VPN “brigade” and instantly provide secure access for up to 250 people— no servers or technical setup required. With just one person managing multiple brigades, it becomes possible to create and distribute thousands of VPN keys and support entire communities at scale. At the booth, visitors can explore both projects, calculate potential VPN revenue, and create their own brigade on the spot.
Get Funded: Your Tool. Our Grant. A Freer Internet.	DT Institute	Are you working on a tool that helps people get online safely under censorship or surveillance? DT Institute's Open Internet Program offers small grants and technical support for new technological solutions and improvements to existing tools that enhance internet freedom, counter censorship, and protect digital privacy. We support human rights activists, journalists, civil society organizations, and everyday internet users in countries with repressive online environments. Stop by our booth to chat and learn how to apply.
Human Constanta & Friends: Digital Rights, Cybersecurity, and Pancakes	Human Constanta Digital Freedoms Lab Legal Hub Cyber Beaver Legal Club	Come for the pancakes, stay for the conversation. Meet the Human Constanta team, discover our projects in digital rights, cybersecurity, and legal empowerment, and hear what our latest research reveals about AI in NGOs and transnational repression against organizations in exile.
Library Freedom Project	Library Freedom Project	Library Freedom Project is a network of values-driven librarians working together to build information democracy. Come to our booth to learn about how librarians protect privacy and defend digital rights.
Línea de Ayuda: Collective Care Against Digital Violence	Ser Valiente en Red	Explore how feminist collective care can become a practical response to technology-facilitated gender-based violence. At our booth, Ser Valiente en Red will share our experience building a Línea de Ayuda in Peru, exchange tools and practices for digital care, and invite participants to reflect on how we can create stronger support systems in our communities.
Local Services for Communities	APC
Lockdown Systems	Lockdown Systems	A booth to talk about and support users using our tools: Cyd - https://cyd.social/ - delete and back up your social media history. Onionshare - https://onionshare.org/ - securely and anonymously share files, host websites, and chat with friends using the Tor network. As well as chat about developing projects like ICE Detetion Map, State Dept X Archive and Observer Vault. We'll be giving out Cyd codes to delete and back up social history as well as talking about our work and plans for the future including how we collaboratively develop tools for privacy, security, advocacy and activism online.
MaadiX	MaadiX	MaadiX plays a crucial role in providing tools that support organizations and individuals to protect their privacy and autonomy. Through an accessible, user-friendly interface that does not require advanced technical expertise, MaadiX enables Human Right Defenders to deploy and manage their own digital infrastructures independently, reducing reliance on large platforms that may be subject to surveillance, censorship, or third-party data access.
Meet Different Organizations Working on Spyware	Amnesty Tech, CYDFIND, SocialTic, Access Now CDT Europe Zoquelabs EDRI Fundacion Aceso	Come meet different organizations and networking working on spyware. Different organizations will be overseeing the booth at different times and dates, so make sure to check the booth agenda!
Nasnet Panel: Building a Digital Infrastructure that Can't Be Shut Down	Holistic Resilience NASNET Connect	Authoritarian governments, including Iran, use centralized internet infrastructure to censor information, surveil citizens, throttle access, and impose nationwide shutdowns. Low Earth Orbit satellite internet such as Starlink can provide an uncensored connection outside state control, but its impact is limited by high costs, deployment risks, and the fact that a single terminal typically serves only one location. Without a secure way to share that connection, nearby communities can remain offline. Most circumvention tools also depend on centralized or external infrastructure that can be blocked during shutdowns. While peer-to-peer approaches are more resilient, they often lack the adoption and usability required in real-world repressive environments. This project addresses that gap by building and deploying the NasNet Panel: a user-friendly, source-agnostic connectivity platform that enables autonomous connections, including satellite internet, to be securely shared across communities before, during, and after shutdowns.
The Onion Odyssey Cryptographic Universe	Tor Project & Guardian Project (Orbot, Onion Browser)	Tor Project and Guardian Project together will tell the vivid, enthralling epic poem of the Onionverse—the wayward heroes, the gigantic adversarial monsters, the vengeful nation state gods, and the protective goddesses of the magical onion layers that can protect and disguise us all on our journeys of justice.
Open Access Curation Lab	University of the People Open Access Week	The Open Access Curation Lab is a collaborative space for accessing, sharing, and using open access resources to support research, learning, creating, publishing, and preservation. Please stop by the booth to ask your questions, offer tips, find new tools, or share your favorite open access resources! And, learn more about SPARC and International Open Access Week 2026 (October 19-25). #OAWeek
Open Briefing Holistic Security Support	Open Briefing	Open Briefing works with defenders, communities, and movements at risk to strengthen their physical safety, digital resilience, and collective wellbeing. We'll be available at the booth to describe our service offerings in detail, highlight key resources we've developed, provide light-touch guidance/support, and to gather referrals for individuals, organizations and collectives who may benefit from more in-depth services following the event.
Open-Source Grants Management	Simula Lab LTD	At our booth, we will showcase an open-source Grants Management Module built on Odoo Community Edition. We developed this solution in collaboration with NGOs in France, Iraq, and Sudan to help organizations manage grants while maintaining control over their data and processes. The module supports financial transparency for donors while protecting sensitive beneficiary information through strong security measures. Because it is open source and self-hosted, organizations retain full ownership of their data and are not dependent on proprietary platforms. At the booth, we will demonstrate the solution, share our experience working with NGOs in challenging environments, and discuss practical approaches to data sovereignty and privacy for civil society organizations.
Outline	Outline	The Outline Foundation booth is a gathering point for everyone who uses, builds, or runs Outline. If you’ve benefited from the Outline apps, come say hello, share your experience, and tell us how Outline could work better for you. Developers can learn how to add Outline to their apps, service providers can explore how to offer it to their communities, and operators can trade lessons on resilient, large-scale deployments. However you use or support Outline, come connect with the community and help shape what comes next.
Palestine Booth	Independent	As we approach three years into the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and across Palestine, and as we witness Western powers' unconditional material support for it, we want to make use of the space we have to hold conversations on how to understand this genocide, and 78 years of ethnic cleansing and occupation, how it intersects deeply with our spaces, and how we - as digital rights activists, academics, educators, researchers, technologists, human rights defenders, and journalists - can and should shape our work to engage meaningfully in this topic. We will also use the space to honor the lives of our martyrs, raise funds for our contacts in Gaza, and host sessions to inspire conversations about solidarity. We will intersect this cause with other contexts of digital military warfare and exploitation as a space to learn, be in solidarity, and imagine what resistance against tech-assisted imperialism can look like. https://chuffed.org/project/palestine-booth
Revista Abismo: Stories Beyond the News Cycle	Revista Abismo	Revista Abismo is an independent media project from Latin America exploring the intersections between journalism, literature, and the arts. Come visit our booth to reflect on a key question: What stories are we leaving out of the digital ecosystem? You'll be invited to share a question, an idea, or a story you believe deserves to be told, helping us build a collective map of overlooked narratives while connecting with others interested in more diverse, meaningful, and human-centered journalism.
RightsCon On The Road	Access Now/RightsCon	This year, RightsCon 2026 was planned to be held in Lusaka, Zambia in May. After the effective cancellation by the Government of Zambia, our team and community lost a vital opportunity to convene, collaborate, and mobilize. The impact of the loss was greatly felt across the sector. Despite these challenges, our community demonstrated remarkable resilience and a clear desire to find pathways to convene again. In response, the RightsCon team has launched "RightsCon on the road", an initiative where we meet the community where they are at other existing and aligned events including Global Gathering. Our booth at Global Gathering will serve as a space for our community to come meet the RightsCon team, exchange insights about the state of civic space, and how conveners can adapt to the current geopolitical landscape and share our upcoming plans and ideas.
RightsLine- Navigating Digital Security and Securing Rights Online	Software Freedom Law Center, India RightsLine	SFLC.in conducts digital security trainings for stakeholders with different levels of experience. Through RightsLine, we assist users with cyberscams and syberfrauds. This booth will provide both technical tips to staying safe online, showcase some of the innovative frauds we have seen, and highlight how important it is to stay vigilant online.
Sex Work and Deepfakes - A Report by ESWA	ESWA	For the past eight months, the European Sex Workers Rights Alliance has been working on an in-depth report about the intersections of sex work and AI-generated content. The findings (including policy recommendations) are in newly-published, 50 pages report, that can be seen, read, and taken home.
Secure Comms: What’s Working, What’s Missing?	Phoenix R&D/Air Messenger & OKthanks	Got a secure comms challenge? Bring it. Maybe your messenger is missing something you need, your colleagues are struggling to adopt a secure tool, or you’re facing a problem no existing tool quite solves. Together, we'll brainstorm creative solutions, and uncover what’s still missing from secure comms today.
Spreading Butter in the Wild	Guardian Project	(This is a structured activity. Be sure to arrive at the booth at 15:30 to participate) Join us for an outdoor field test of ButterBox's newest features: multi-box networking and DeltaChat secure messaging. This year, ButterBox wants to take over the Global Gathering space with a community stress test! Join us for a live demo, then breakout groups with a competition (game) for users to test our new features and win a prize.
Unveiling Cyber-Surveillance - Case Studies from South Asia	Digital Rights Foundation	This booth will serve as an interactive community space that explores South Asia's evolving cyber-surveillance landscape through the lens of legislation, accountability, and resilience. We will showcase DRF's part in the Surveillance Accountability Initiative through the research Unveiling Cyber-Surveillance in South Asia, spotlighting each country and the need for democratic oversight and transparency in the region. The focus will especially be on how the Global South is increasingly becoming a hotbed for surveillance technologies and how supply chains leverage instability in the region to market their tech.
WRP and FIRN ecosystem	APC