September 6 2026 Agenda
From TCU Wiki
!!! Please note that the agenda is still being updated !!!!
September 6 Pre-GG Morning Activities | 9:00 - 12:00
These activities occur in the morning, before the start of the Global Gathering
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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:
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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.
8:30 - ?: GG 5K Run/Walk!! 🏃🏽♀️🏃🏽♀️ | |
September 6 GG Activities | 12:00 - 18:00
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Networking Hour Meetups 12:00 - 13:00 |
| 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. | |
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Circles, Villages and Offsite Meetups🔔 Follow these instructions, to organize a Circle in the slots marked "TBD" OR to organize an offsite meetup. 🔔 Please take notes in each Riseup pad linked in each title. You can find detailed Circles, Villages, and Meetup descriptions the end of this page. | ||
| Circle 1 | Authoritarian Innovation: AI Safety, Surveillance, and the Politics of Control | Intergenerational Conversation: Resisting Digital Authoritarianism Across Contexts | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Circle 2 | Age Verification Systems and Digital Identity Systems: The Collaborations and Strategies (Part 2) | AI Disinformation in Pre-Election Contexts Across The Global South | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Circle 3 | Mapping the Militarisation of Tech | TBD - Available to be reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Circle 4 | Do You Sleep at Night? How to Not Wear Out Your Sysadmin | Your Email, Delivered! Lets start a Discussion on Email Compliance and Deliverability | The Beginning: Addressing Common Challenges to Establishing Your Own Digitally Sovereign Tech Stack/Infrastructure in Low Resourced Environments |
| Circle 5 | Secure and Private Design and User Research for Human Rights Tech Meetup | Care for the Docs! Challenges and Concerns within Digital Security Documentation Community | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Circle 6 | Deeply Rooted: Co-Creative and Relational Practices for Safeguarding (Digital) Cultural and Natural Heritage | Building Stronger Digital Security Communities: A Conversation Between Moldova, Ukraine and Beyond | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Circle 7 | Moderation, Maintenance, and Money: The Care Work of Community-Governed Tech | TBD - Available to be reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Villages | |||
| Ecosystem Resilience | Closing the Loop: Lessons from Sunsetting an Organization | What Does a Win Look Like in Our Ecosystem? | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Calyx Village | Reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved | Reserved |
| APC Village | Tooling up - Partnership and Alliances | How to Build FLOSS in Late Stage Capitalism? | Celebrate Good Time Come On! |
| Digital Security | Games for Digital Rights & Security Education | Availability Over Confidentiality: Digital Security Lessons from Ukraine's Blackouts | Hands off my stuff! Tactics and strategies against physical device searches |
| Circumvention Tech | |||
| Spyware Village | |||
| Village A | How to Support Youth-Led Digital Safety for Women and Girls in Guatemala and Central America | Acuerpar in Chaos: Collective Security Lessons from Civic Networks in Crisis | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Village B | How to Design and Build a Digital Security Concept Map | TBD - Available to be reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Village C | TBD - Available to be reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved | TBD - Available to be reserved |
| Offsite Meetups | Please note that these meetups are being organized by participants themselves, and the TCU/GG staff have no oversight on these activities. | ||
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BoothsYou 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. | ||||
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| Location | |||||
| APC Village Booth 3 |
Local Services for Communities | APC | WRP and FIRN ecosystem | APC | |
| Booth 4a | Cry to the Water: AI as Ancestral Intelligence | GLOBAL DIGITAL FUTURES LTD. | Cry to the Water: AI as Ancestral Intelligence | GLOBAL DIGITAL FUTURES LTD. | |
| Booth 4b | Frontline Africa: Digital Safety & Wellbeing Desk | Digital Shield Africa | Digital Security Helpline - Safety Clinic | Access Now | |
| Booth 5 | Dash Chat | Dash Chat | Lockdown Systems | Lockdown Systems | |
| Queer Rights Village
Booth 6 |
RightsLine- Navigating Digital Security and Securing Rights Online | Software Freedom Law Center, India | 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 | |
| Secure Comms Village Booth 9 |
Air Messenger | Phoenix R&D/Air Messenger | How is your Organization Using Secure Messaging Apps? What's Still 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 | |||
| Booth 13 | Open-Source Grants Management | Simula Lab LTD | The De|Center Booth | Center] | |
| Booth 14 | |||||
| Booth 15 | Nasnet Panel: Building a Digital Infrastructure that Can't Be Shut Down | Holistic Resilience | ShoutSMS - An Encrypted SMS Solution for Internet Outages | Collaborative Futures | Gisa Group | |
| Booth 16 | Open Briefing Holistic Security Support | Open Briefing | Digital Security Collective | Digital Security Collective | |
| Booth 17 | Bodies, Data, Territories: Transhackfeminisms from Abya Yala | Universitat de Girona and Técnicas RudasColectiva Ada | From Shutdowns to Disinformation: Frontline Data for Safer Digital Spaces | Digihub Africa | |
| Booth 18 | DATAGOV Lab: Transfeminist Digital Care & Infrastructural Inequalities | University of Amsterdam, DATAGOV | 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 | |
| Circumvention Tech Village
Booth 22 |
The Onion Odyssey Cryptographic Universe | Tor Project & Guardian Project (Orbot, Onion Browser) | The Onion Odyssey Cryptographic Universe | Tor Project & Guardian Project (Orbot, Onion Browser) | |
| Spyware Village
Booth 57 |
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| Calyx Village
Booth 79 |
Calyx Institute | Calyx Institute | Calyx Institute | Calyx Institute | |
| Booth 80 | Library Freedom Project | Library Freedom Project | Open Access Curation Lab | University of the People | |
| Regional Perspectives Village
Booth 81 |
Abrimos.info: Open Data Tools for Democracy in Latin America | Abrimos.info | Colnodo: Empowering Communities Through Technology | Colnodo | |
| Booth 82 | Palestine Booth | Independent | Palestine Booth | Independent | |
September 6 Global Gathering After Hours | 18:00 - 21:00
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Closing Party |
| Time: 18:00
Location: Center of venue |
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| Other Evening Socials | |
| If you would like to organize an evening social, 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. |
Partners
Village and Circle Descriptions
Villages are "all-day hubs" focused on specific topics. They house both Booths and Circles.
| APC Village | ||
| Calyx Village | ||
| Circumvention Tech Village | ||
| Digital Security Village | ||
| Ecosystem Resilience Village | ||
| Spyware Village | ||
| Regional A | ||
| Regional B | ||
| Regional C |
| Acuerpar in Chaos: Collective Security Lessons from Civic Networks in Crisis | This Circle will use a real case from the 2025 protests in Lima, Peru as a starting point for discussion, where independent journalists, human rights defenders, community communicators, rescuers, activists, and digital creators coordinated to document events, verify information, protect each other, and sustain information flows under pressure and with limited resources. It will serve as a starting point for participants to compare experiences from different regions and collaboratively identify practical organizational security strategies that can strengthen grassroots networks before the next crisis. ("Acuerpar" is a Latin American concept that goes beyond accompaniment. It refers to collectively showing up, protecting one another, sharing risk, and sustaining communities in moments of crisis. ) |
| Age Verification Systems and Digital Identity Systems: The Collaborations and Strategies (Part 2) | This is part 2 of a two part Circle focused on Age Verification and digital Identify Systems
This Circle focuses on age verification, the harm-reduction pathways that civil society and technologists can advance, and how to respond to the narratives of privacy and safety that are often used to justify these systems. Participants will identify opportunities for cross-regional collaboration and co-develop strategies for engaging with the evolving digital identity ecosystem, with attention to both policy advocacy and the design, deployment, and implementation of technical systems. |
| Authoritarian Innovation: AI Safety, Surveillance, and the Politics of Control | This circle will use a recently published paper examining how China is building control into generative AI systems as a starting point for discussion. Participants will discuss how AI governance, technical standards, and platform design can embed censorship and surveillance before content is even produced. Participants will compare regional experiences and explore how civil society can respond when "AI safety" and "content security" are used to justify political control. |
| AI Disinformation in Pre-Election Contexts Across The Global South | AI-generated disinformation is becoming a defining feature of election cycles across the Global South, and while policy responses are underway, citizens need ways to stay alert to disinformation that threatens electoral integrity. With Kenya's 2027 general election as a case study, this circle seeks to bring together digital rights defenders, fact-checkers, journalists, and researchers to co-develop practical verification habits that outlast the detection hacks AI keeps outpacing, and to close the gap between existing fact-checking resources and public awareness of them. |
| Availability Over Confidentiality: Digital Security Lessons from Ukraine's Blackouts | During Ukraine's long blackouts, supporting journalists and human rights defenders meant constantly looking for compromises between availability and security. Being able to work at all often came first, but security stayed part of every decision, and the work never stopped - we just had to adapt. This Circle shares real, hands-on lessons on backup power, staying online, and the hard choices teams had to make. |
| Building Stronger Digital Security Communities: A Conversation Between Moldova, Ukraine and Beyond | Civil society organizations across the world are facing increasingly complex digital threats, yet many countries are still developing the local communities and partnerships needed to provide sustainable digital security support. Moldova and Ukraine offer complementary perspectives: Ukraine has built a strong digital security community through years of responding to cyber threats, while Moldova is strengthening collaboration between civil society and digital security practitioners to build local capacity. This Circle will bring together participants to discuss how digital security communities can grow through collaboration, peer learning and cross-border partnerships. Rather than presenting a single model, the discussion will invite participants to compare experiences, identify common challenges and explore practical opportunities for regional and international cooperation. |
| Care for the docs! Challenges and Concerns within Digital Security Documentation Community | Digital security documentation is core to the community strategies to protect HRDs and at-risk groups under surveillance, threats and attacks. Documentation maintainers now compete with AI-generated content to deliver accurate, reliable, and localized information. What critical topics and attack trends need further documentation? Is the community willing to use AI to streamline maintenance tasks and, if so, how to safeguard content's accuracy? |
| Celebrate Good Time Come On! | Open space to meet and greet, say hello or goodbyes, gather as many stickers and candies as you can. We invite folks to use this time to hang out and connect with each other. |
| Circumvention Hangout | Come by the village to meet others working on circumvention technology or strategies. This is an informal hangout space. |
| Closing the Loop: Lessons from Sunsetting an Organization | Using our own recent decision to sunset the Center for Digital Resilience as a starting point, this circle will look at what goes into sunsetting an organization. How do you decide it’s time? How do you plan for it? Come with your own questions or experiences: this is meant to be as much a conversation as a case study. |
| Deeply Rooted: Co-Creative and Relational Practices for Safeguarding (Digital) Cultural and Natural Heritage | Cultural and natural heritage are under threat from a convergence of crises, and the digital governance frameworks meant to safeguard them often replicate the same extraction and erasure they claim to prevent. This Circle invites participants to co-build a living set of relational governance principles, material that will directly shape an open-access zine on safeguarding digital cultural heritage, currently being developed through an ongoing cross-sectoral collaboration. |
| Do You Sleep at Night? How to Not Wear Out Your Sysadmin | Runing infrastrucure is not easy. There can be hardware or power issue and your application is offline. Or there can be a failed software upgrade and your application is offline. There can be a storm and the WiFi antenna of your mesh network is collapsed. The neighbor complaining it can not access instragram. End users often quickly get frustrated - building pressure on sysadmins and operators. How to find the balance, how to set the right expectations for end-users. |
| Games for Digital Rights & Security Education | Calling all practitioners and enthusiasts for interactive and play-based education! In this circle, we'll exchange ideas and lessons learned in creating and facilitating educational games. You're welcome whether you have created your own games, designed creative training tactics, or are just interested in how to elevate digital literacy and raise awareness in fun activities. |
| Hands off my stuff! Tactics and Strategies Against Physical Device Searches | An open discussion about the latest tactics and strategies to protect our devices and the data they hold against physical searches. We'll discuss tools, good practices, and threat models like border searches, lost/stolen devices, abusive domestic situations, etc. |
| How to Build FLOSS in Late Stage Capitalism? | Big tech, funding oportunities shifting to AI and defence, vibe coding, deterioration of workers rights... how do we adapt to build the technology we need in this context? |
| How to Design and Build a Digital Security Concept Map | How do you measure the success of your training efforts? And how do you know what needs to change in order to see success? The digital security training team at Freedom of the Press Foundation is working to answer these questions through the development of a concept map (doubling as a knowledge base) that will help us test the efficacy of our materials while also seamlessly onboarding new trainers. Come see! |
| How to Support Youth-Led Digital Safety for Women and Girls in Guatemala and Central American | Participants will explore how different stakeholders can better support women and young people facing online gender-based violence in Guatemala and Central America. Using case studies and lessons learned as a starting point, participants will discuss practical ways to strengthen community-led digital safety initiatives. |
| Intergenerational Conversation: Resisting Digital Authoritarianism Across Contexts | In this Circle, participants will explore how state-sponsored and tech-driven authoritarianism impacts different communities through shared experiences of digital surveillance, harassment, and censorship. We will intentionally bring an intergenerational lens, looking at how tech threats target different age groups, and how youth-led digital tactics can blend with seasoned organizing experience to build stronger collective defenses. Rather than focusing solely on regional differences, participants will identify common patterns and exchange community-led strategies that defenders can immediately adapt to their local realities. |
| Mapping the Militarisation of Tech | The battlefield is coming to our towns and cities, as technologies that we rely on every day are militarised. In turn, civilian technologies driven by our data and our lives, are moving onto the battlefield. The very same companies who build tools of war are expanding to deliver civilian infrastructure, and vice versa. We are being pushed into a militarised future we don't want. This circle will explore strategies to counter the narrative that data-intensive military tech will lead to better protection for civilians, by highlighting the risks to our rights to privacy, data protection, and freedom of expression. |
| Moderation, Maintenance, and Money: The Care Work of Community-Governed Tech | Community-led technology is often built around values like openness, access, privacy, and participation, but keeping it alive requires much more than shared principles. This Circle asks what it really takes to sustain community-governed infrastructure: who moderates harm, who maintains the code, who pays for hosting and security, who makes decisions, and how care work can be recognized before people burn out. |
| Secure and Private Design and User Research for Human Rights Tech Meetup | This Circle brings together design and research practitioners to discuss the state of user centered design and user research in the human rights technology and support/training space. Participants will define, discuss, debate and ideate what good and great looks like for users and beneficiaries of human rights technology as heard by designers, user researchers and digital security trainers that work directly with them. |
| The Beginning: Addressing Common Challenges to Establishing Your Own Digitally Sovereign Tech Stack/Infrastructure in Low Resourced Environments | In this Circle, participants will discuss common challenges to establishing and maintaining their own digital sovereign tech stack/infrastructure in low resourced environments—the collection of software applications, platforms, and tools needed to run your organization, network, or project. Together, we’ll explore practical solutions for overcoming these challenges, whether you’re just getting started or looking to strengthen infrastructure you already have in place. Come with your questions, learn about common pitfalls, and hear practical approaches and tools. |
| Tooling up - Partnership and Alliances | This meet-up brings together interested organisations and individuals from previous sessions and talks to discuss together how the strenghten and support community centred connectivity and local services as an eco-system approach. |
| What Does a Win Look Like in Our Ecosystem? | In resource-constrained, high-pressure environments, and our present day doom and gloom narrative, communities that don't pause, reflect on their progress and celebrate their wins are more prone to burn out. This Circle brings participants together to define, share, and circulate what a "win" looks like in the Digital Rights and Tech Justice community - across regions, contexts, and scales. In preparation for the circle, we will gather stories from partners and members of the community, explore their main elements and invite participants. Participants will collaborate with a guide to recognize 'wins' and contribute to guidelines on how to tell these stories. The circle will also have as a result different narrative strategies that can help participants describe their work differently and potentially refine the goals of certain projects.| |
| Your Email, Delivered! Lets start a Discussion on Email Compliance and Deliverability | Newsletters, campaign updates, and calls to action: many individuals and organizations in the digital rights space need their email delivered in order to reach their goals. There are many-technical and non-technical-mechanisms that affect the "deliverability" of your email. We'll discuss non-technical strategies and explain what SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI, TLS-RTP, and MTA-STS can do for non-profits, activists, freelancers and solopreneurs. Access to some of these technologies is prohibitively expensive. Can we count on your support to advocate for cheaper access to the most cutting edge email standards? |
