September 8 2025 Agenda

Day one of the 2025 Global Gathering Agenda | Next Day >

---

Join us for good food and music

12:00 to 13:00

Global Gathering Meet and Greet Brunch

Complimentary brunch bites, networking, and opening remarks. Join us for good food, music, and make connections!

	Self-Organized Socials
	Arrange or check out the list of Self-Organized Socials taking place off-site (but close by) locations, ranging from meetups to numerous activities. https://pad.riseup.net/p/GGSocials
	A Sample of Today's Socials:

	Circles and Villages You can find detailed Circle descriptions the end of this page. You can also organize your own self-organized Circle or Booth in the empty spaces (marked SOC TBD) by following these instructions.
Circles, September 8
Location	13:30 - 14:30	15:00 - 16:00	16:30 - 17:30
Circle 1		Digital Rights X Climate Justice: Meet Up!	Digital Rights in Portugal: Where Do We Go From Here?
Circle 2
Circle 3	Africa Meetup	Security Practioners Meetup	AI Accountability in Practice: Centering Community Voices
Circle 4	Western Europe Meetup	Gathering the Gatherers	Tackling Misinformation Through Open Tools and Civic Literacy
Circle 5		Policy Advocates Meetup	Bridging Borders: Building Resilience Against Cross-Border Cyber Threats
Circle 6		Journalism Meetup	Remote Team Cohesion Best Practices
Villages, September 8
Location	13:30 - 14:30	15:00 - 16:00	16:30 - 17:30
APC Village Booth 7
Calyx Village Booth 9	North America Meetup	Researchers Meetup	ED Meetup
Circumvention Tech Village Booth 12		Technologist Meetup	Update on Censorship Circumvention Methods at Tor
Open Measurement Gathering (OMG) Village Booth 17
Digital Rights Sustainability Village Main Stage		Imaginaries Futures (Part 1)	Brainstorm on Alternative Funding Models (part 1)
Regional Topics A Booth 21	Latin America Meetup
Regional Topics B Booth 22	Asia Meetup
Name to Come	Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus (EECAC) Meetup
SWANA Village Booth 81	SWANA Meetup

	Booths Each booth has a number, which can be found on top, center above a booth's "window". You can find detailed Booths & Villages descriptions at the bottom of this page.
Booths, September 8
	13:00 - 15:00			15:30 - 17:30
Location	Name	Run by		Name	Run by
Booth 4a
Booth 4b		Amnezia VPN			Amnezia VPN
Booth 5
Booth 6
APC Village Booth 7	APC Village	APC		APC Village	APC
Booth 8
Calyx Village Booth 9	Calyx Village	Calyx Institute		Calyx Village	Calyx Institute
Booth 10
Booth 11
Circumvention Technology Village Booth 12
Booth 13
Booth 14
Booth 15
Booth 16
Open Measurement Gathering (OMG) Village Booth 17
Booth 18
Booth 19
Regional Conversations A Booth 21
Regional Conversations B Booth 22
Booth 78
Booth 79
Booth 80
SWANA Village Booth 81
Booth 82	Palestine Booth	Solidarity Network of Palestinians and Allies		Palestine Booth	Solidarity Network of Palestinians and Allies

	Global Gathering After Hours
18:00 - 21:00	Join us for music and socializing in our beautiful venue.

Partners

Thank you to all of the partners and sponsors that have made the 2025 Global Gathering possible!

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Circle Descriptions

Circle Title	Circle Description
Africa Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the African region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse African projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the Africa digital rights community.
AI Accountability in Practice: Centering Community Voices	Understanding and evaluating Artificial Intelligence systems and their downstream societal impact is rarely grounded in (or takes account of) experiences, perspectives, and concerns of impacted communities and advocacy/rights groups. This Circle will bring together advocacy experts and rights activists to exchange ideas and practices around accountability and harm reduction in digital systems for their communities. Our aim is to learn from the techniques and strategies used in advocacy work to contest and hold tech systems, particularly those focused on AI, to account and protect affected communities.
Asia Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the Asia region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse Asian projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the Asian digital rights community.
Bridging Borders: Building Resilience Against Cross-Border Cyber Threats	This Circle brings together security practitioners to discuss how cross-border cyberattacks and data breaches impact CSOs and explore the potential of regional alliances to bolster resilience. In recent years, coordinated cybercriminal groups have exploited regional vulnerabilities, such as weak intergovernmental cybersecurity policies and inconsistent threat monitoring, to launch sophisticated, multi-jurisdictional attacks. Cross-border cyberattacks - from ransomware campaigns to state-sponsored espionage - are increasingly targeting critical systems, institutions, and civil society organizations. By building alliances across borders, rights defenders can enable real-time intelligence sharing, coordinated incident response, and, ideally, the development of harmonized cybersecurity frameworks—ensuring that our defenses are as interconnected as the threats we face.
Brainstorm on Alternative Funding Models (part 1)	This is part 1 of a two part Circle series As the digital rights field faces a historic funding crisis, many of us are asking: What now? We all are looking for alternative funding, but how do we organize for that? How do we prepare our organization to become more agile on fundraising? What options of alternative funding exist—from reimagined grantmaking models to untapped donors, ethical partnerships, and community-powered support. Together, we’ll surface bold ideas, share examples from adjacent movements, and identify who might be ready to fund this work—even if they haven’t yet. This session is about expanding our collective imagination and beginning to chart a path toward financial resilience rooted in solidarity, innovation, and justice.
Digital Rights in Portugal: Where do We go from Here?	This Circle is a precious opportunity to touch base and network among all Portugal-based activists, share updates regarding our collective agendas, and start conversations about our priorities in the near future.
Digital Rights X Climate Justice: Meet Up!	Connect with individuals working at the intersection of climate justice and digital rights to share updates and explore how to better collaborate across continents and movements. Together, we’ll take stock of global developments, celebrate wins, exchange ideas and lessons learned, and chart where we want to go next. We welcome everyone engaged in digital climate justice—whether combating climate disinformation, advancing sustainable digital infrastructure, protecting climate and digital rights defenders, or addressing migration challenges linked to climate change.
ED Meetup	Connect with other EDs managing organizations in the digital rights field. This is a fantastic opportunity to foster meaningful connections, share your concerns and seek support, and expand your professional network.
Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus Meetup (EECC) Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the EECCA region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse EECCA projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the EECCA digital rights community.
Gathering the Gatherers	This Circle is for those who play facilitation roles in their communities and movements -- community organisers, trainers, facilitators, people who often themselves being asked to hold space for others, to negotiate conflict in their groups. In this Circle, we will share experiences, discuss challenges we face, and ways we are adapting to accommodate the ever-changing realities of our communities and movements. And hopefully, find meaningful ways we can sustain and support each other.
Imaginaries Futures (Part 1)	This is part 1 of a two part Circle series. Imaginaries Futures explores how the current financial system shapes both possibilities and limitations for funding in the digital rights space. Through guided collective inquiry and speculative ideation, participants will examine structural barriers, map dependencies, and reflect on the governance of financial flows. Rather than offering ready-made solutions, the session creates space for imagining new funding architectures grounded in solidarity, care, and resistance that could support more just and resilient futures. This is an exploratory phase for developing a shared language, identifying questions, and exploring potential directions for building alternative financial realities.
Journalism Meetup	Connect with other journalists and media professionals in the digital rights field. This is a fantastic opportunity to foster meaningful connections, share your concerns and seek support, and expand your professional network.
Latin America Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the Latin America region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse Latin American projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the Latin America digital rights community.
North America Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the North American region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse North American projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the North American digital rights community.
Policy Advocates Meetup	Connect with individuals working at the intersection of policy and digital rights. This event offers a unique opportunity to learn from fellow policy advocates from across the world, and learn about current policy initiatives related to the impact of technology on human rights.
Remote Team Cohesion Best Practices	We will surface the challenges related to working in a remote team, and then share learnings and best tips to overcome those challenges. Collectively, we will also compile a list of best practices to share with both participants and the broader field.
Researchers Meetup	Connect with fellow researchers investigating topics and subjects in digital rights, internet freedom, security and technology. This space offers a space to share insights, discuss recent findings, and explore emerging trends in the field. Whether you're a seasoned researcher or new to the field, this meetup provides a supportive environment to enhance your work and impact.
Security Practioners Meetup	Join this Circle to meet security practioners from around the world. Whether you are a cybersecurity professional conducting audits, or a digital security trainer, this is a great opportunity to meet security enthusiasts and get updates on new trends and issues in the field, while sharing your knowledge.
SWANA Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the SWANA region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from diverse SWANA projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the SWANA digital rights community.
Tackling Misinformation Through Open Tools and Civic Literacy	Explore how open source tools can empower communities to combat misinformation, deepen media literacy, and foster civic collaboration. Together, we’ll + Share open-source applications that identify message similarity, detect false content, and support real-time response coordination across regions +Analyze how different media outlets present information, and build practical skills in fact-checking and critical reading—especially in the context of emerging platforms + Explore strategies for civic engagement using cooperative platforms that support collaborative image and text analysis, inviting participants to practice co-creating knowledge with strangers. This session is for technologists, activists, educators, and everyday citizens who believe in the power of transparency, critical thinking, and collaboration in defending truth.
Technologist Meetup	Join this Circle to meet diverse types of technologists from across the world that are working in digital rights, or in public interest technology. Whether you’re looking to share your expertise or learn from others, this hub is a great place to learn about new developments, and find opportunities for collaboration.
Update on Censorship Circumvention Methods at Tor	Tor Project will share about how their circumvention tools are performing and the latest updates on censorship trends they are seeing around the world in countries like China and Russia. Their goal with this Circle is to have a conversation with the community regarding these latest events and to discuss how we can work together to continue to fight censorship online
Western Europe Meetup	Connect with individuals actively working in the Western European region. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about different projects, gain valuable insights, and expand your professional network. This meetup is designed to foster meaningful connections and enrich the Western European digital rights community.

Booth & Village Descriptions

Village	Run by	Village Description