September 9 2025 Agenda
From TCU Wiki
12:00 to 13:00: Lunch and Networking Hour
Check out the various food vendors and connect with participants in a beautiful setting.
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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: |
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Circles and VillagesYou 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. | ||
| Location | |||
| Circle 1 | Which Free Software Alternative for Which Needs | From Seas to Skies: The New Frontiers of Internet Governance | AI Risk Mitigation from the Trainer and Civil Society Organization Point of View |
| Circle 2 | VPN Providers: Building a Unified Front to Ensure Our Collective Sustainability | Leading AI Detection: Deepfakes, Provenance & Protection | Who’s Writing Our Story? Documenting the why as well as the how |
| Circle 3 | The Role of Data and Tech During Elections & its Effect on Human Rights | Inside a Cross-Border Investigation on Surveillance and Censorship Tech | Mapping the Global Spyware Landscape: Perspectives, Gaps & Possibilities |
| Circle 4 | Device Searches Around The World: Building For Deniability | ||
| Circle 5 | The Practice of Joy: Sustaining Hope in the Tech Justice Movement | ||
| Circle 6 | |||
| Location | |||
| Luminate Village (Booth 78 and 79) |
Effective Altruism: How Can Civil Society and Philanthropy Respond? | Effective Altruism: How Can Civil Society and Philanthropy Respond? | Effective Altruism: How Can Civil Society and Philanthropy Respond? |
| Calyx Village (Booth 9) |
Secure Messaging in 2025 and What Comes Next? | Sketch It Out: Unblock Your Brain and Spark Creative Flow | |
| Circumvention Tech Village (Booth 12) |
VPN Guild | ||
| APC Village (Booth 7) |
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| Open Measurement Gathering (OMG) Village (Booth 17) |
Mapping Emerging Digital Rights Threats | Internet Measurement Research Questions and Ideas | Are You My Measurement Tool? |
| Digital Rights Sustainability Village (Main Stage) |
Brainstorm on Alternative Funding Models (Part 2) | Numun Fund Session Part 1 | A Listening Session on the Digital Rights Funding Collapse |
| Regional Topics A (Booth 21) |
Capacity Building in Community Contexts: Needs, Pedagogies, and Emerging Challenges | Surveillance Technologies and Organized Crime: Impacts and Resistance | |
| Regional Topics B (Booth 22) |
TFGBV, Disinformation, and Platform Accountability in the Indo-Pak Conflict of 2025 | ||
| SWANA Village (Booth 81) |
Meta's Shifting Moderation Model: Rethinking Trusted Partner Escalations | From Palestine to Mexico: The Interconnectedness of Violent Tech | |
| Queer Rights Village (Booth 5) |
Queer Meetup | Queer Bodies and Identities Under Threat in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Region. | |
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BoothsYou can find detailed Booths & Villages descriptions at the bottom of this page. In the venue (IRL), each booth has a number, found on the top-center of each booth's "window". | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | |||||
| Booth 4a | Psychological First Aid: Tools for Care and Connection by Vita Activa | Vita Activa | Secure Storyteller Network | Secure Storyteller Network | |
| Booth 4b | Amnezia VPN | Amnezia VPN | Amnezia VPN | Amnezia VPN | |
| (Queer Rights Village) Booth 5 |
Queer Rights Booth | Logic(s) Magazine | Logic(s) Magazine | ||
| Booth 6 | Open Source Design Collective | Open Source Design | Operator Foundation | Operator Foundation | |
| (APC Village) Booth 7 |
APC Village | APC | APC Village | APC | |
| Booth 8 | Article 19 & Yubico | Article 19 & Yubico | Article 19 & Yubico | Article 19 & Yubico | |
| (Calyx Village) Booth 9 |
Calyx institute | Calyx institute | Calyx institute | Calyx institute | |
| Booth 10 | VPN Generator: Get your own VPN Here | VPN Generator | DT Institute, VPN, Datacasting, Off Grid Communications | DT Institute | |
| Booth 11 | Horizontal | Horizontal | Preserving Truth, Reclaiming Power - How to use Save by OpenArchive to Get the Boot off Our Necks ✊🏿✊🏾🤘🏽✊ | OpenArchive | |
| (Circumvention Tech Village) Booth 12 |
Tor Project & Guardian Project | Tor Project & Guardian Project | Tor Project & Guardian Project | Tor Project & Guardian Project | |
| Booth 13 | Claw Back Your Data | Lockdown Systems | De|Center | Center] | |
| Booth 14 | Digital Defense Fund | Digital Defense Fund | Digital Defense Fund | Digital Defense Fund | |
| Booth 15 | Disrupt the Business of Harm: Make Surveillance-Tech Less Profitable | Coalition for Surveillance-Tech Accountability: Freedom House, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, & FIND | Mobile Forensics and Mobile Auditing with SocialTIC | SocialTIC | |
| Booth 16 | IdHub: Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials for Communities and Citizens | IdHub | Abrimos.info: TeseoETL Revolutionize your Data Management | Abrimos.info | |
| (Open Measurement Gathering (OMG) Village) Booth 17 |
Measurement Lab and the Internet Quality Barometer | Measurement Lab | Censored Planet | Censored Planet | |
| Booth 18 | WITNESS' Deepfake Rapid Response Force and AI Detection for Human Rights Defenders | WITNESS | BIRN's Digital Rights Monitoring and Research on Southeast Europe | Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) | |
| Booth 19 | Power to Voices | Oxfam Novib | Power to Voices | Oxfam Novib | |
| (Regional Conversations A) Booth 21 |
Fear on the Net: How the Venezuelan Internet Broke After the Elections. | VE sin Filtro / Conexion Segura y Libre | Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean | Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean | |
| (Regional Conversations B) Booth 22 |
South Asia Village: Resisting Digital Injustice, Building Collective Resilience | Digital Rights Foundation | From Surveillance to Safety: Community-Driven Approaches to Digital Accountability in South Asia | Digital Rights Foundation | |
| (Luminate Village) Booth 78 and 79 | Effective Altruism: How Can We Respond? | Luminate | Effective Altruism: How Can We Respond? | Luminate | |
| Booth 80 | The ARISE Accountability Arcade: Feminist and Global South-Led Campaigns for Platform Accountability | Digital Empowerment Foundation - Project ARISE | Curious Shapes | Curious Shapes | |
| (SWANA Village) Booth 81 |
Digital Citizenship Helpline: Community-Centered Digital Safety | Digital Citizenship | JOSA | JOSA | |
| Booth 82 | Palestine Booth | Solidarity Network of Palestinians and Allies | Palestine Booth | Solidarity Network of Palestinians and Allies | |
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Global Gathering After Hours |
| Karaoke!!! Our favorite pass time! |
Partners
Circle Descriptions
| AI Risk Mitigation from the Trainer and Civil Society Organization Point of View | Civil society organizations are rapidly adopting AI, outpacing their ability to mitigate the associated risks. Participants will discuss effective strategies for building capacity to mitigate risks while still leveraging the opportunities AI presents. |
| A Listening Session on the Digital Rights Funding Collapse | Share your experiences and help map the impact of the ongoing funding collapse on our communities and networks - whether you've been directly affected, are supporting impacted groups, or trying to make sense of what's happening. Through these stories participants will also help identify emerging patterns. Over the past year, the digital rights ecosystem has been shaken by an unprecedented wave of funding cuts, with organizations across the globe—especially those led by and serving marginalized communities—forced to downsize, pause programs, or shut down entirely. This isn’t just a budget issue; it's a structural crisis with long-term implications for our collective safety, resilience, and ability to defend digital freedoms. |
| Brainstorm on Alternative Funding Models (Part 2) | This is part 2 of a two part circle series. As our 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 Circle will help us expand our collective imagination and begin to chart a path toward financial resilience rooted in solidarity, innovation, and justice. |
| Device Searches Around The World: Building For Deniability | Participants will share (as much as they feel comfortable) their real-world experiences of device searches - borders, police checkpoints, during detention, etc - including what was inspected, why, and how these searches played out in different parts of the world. Together, they will examine these stories to exchange safety strategies that move beyond individual tactics towards envisioning the systemic changes our tools need. De|Center staff will be facilitating this Circle, drawing on their long history of advocating for harm reduction on platforms. They will guide participants on discussions that explore how to build harm reduction and deniability directly into device and app design -- from invisible messages and self-destruct functions to offline and online coded communication -- and think of new paradigms of what can be possible. |
| Effective Altruism: How can Civil Society and Philanthropy Respond? | Join a drop-in session on effective altruism, the impact the movement is having on AI policy, and strategies for philanthropy and civil society to respond to this movement's incursion into the fields in which we work. This will follow an open space format where participants are free to join and leave the conversation as is useful for them. A 'tech oligarchy' is emerging in the US, with Big Tech's power and control over our governments, societies and lives being exposed like never before. Amidst the AI hype we're witnessing, business and political leaders are lauding the potential of AI to solve the world's most critical problems, moving the conversation away from addressing real-world harms of AI including discrimination, bias, and disinformation. |
| From Seas to Skies: The New Frontiers of Internet Governance | Beyond traditional areas of network and telecommunications governance, new tensions are increasingly reshaping what internet governance means: who is actually governing the new technologies that increasingly facilitate our internet connections? As companies like Google, Amazon, AWS, and Starlink expand their control over submarine cables, cloud infrastructure, and satellite networks, the longstanding approach to governing the internet stack through a set of well-known bodies like ICANN and the IETF is becoming more fragmented and contested. This Circle will explore both the traditional venues of Internet governance and what is at stake there for the IF community as well as map how governance is shifting from traditional internet governance and technical standards bodies to new venues, and what civil society can do to prevent the consolidation of power over the internet. |
| From Palestine to Mexico: The Interconnectedness of Violent Tech | The genocidal war on Gaza is being committed by Israel and a web of global markets led by tech and military companies who are profiting from this war, as clearly illustrated by Francesca Albanese report, "From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide". Participants will explore how certain tech is not only being applied in violent ways but also built in violent ways, such as the mining exploitation of DRC Congo. Participants will also discuss explicit examples of the inter-disconnectedness of the economies of oppressive tech industry, looking at the connections between Silicon Valley and military, governments, universities, and research centers. |
| Inside a Cross-Border Investigation on Surveillance and Censorship Tech | Join Amnesty Tech and InterSec Lab for a look at their groundbreaking collaborative investigation into surveillance and censorship technologies, which will be launched during the Global Gathering. Learn about their findings on how powerful digital tools are being traded and deployed across borders to suppress civic space. Participants will have the opportunity to explore: + The methodologies used to analyze and safeguard highly sensitive leaked data + The secure platforms and workflows enabling cross-organizational collaboration + Key investigative findings and their implications for the global digital rights community Engage directly with investigators, learn replicable practices, and discuss the broader ecosystem enabling rights-abusing technologies to flourish. It’s also one of the first chances to respond collectively to the investigation’s revelations, as it launches in real time at the Gathering. |
| Leading AI Detection: Deepfakes, Provenance & Protection | Deepfakes are rapidly evolving—and so are the threats they pose. In this Circle, particiipants willl unpack how generative AI is being used to create increasingly realistic audiovisual content, and explore two key strategies for mitigating harm: provenance and detection. We’ll also spotlight emerging threats to those on the frontlines of media and human rights and invite participants into an interactive conversation to share experiences and strategies for collective defense. |
| Mapping the Global Spyware Landscape: Perspectives, Gaps & Possibilities | Led by partners of the Spyware Accountability Initiative, this interactive Circle invites participants to collectively map the diverse range of work, perspectives, and lived experiences related to spyware and surveillance technologies around the world. Whether you’re working on investigations, victim support, policy reform, tool development, or community education—this space is for you. Participants will explore + What does spyware work look like across regions and sectors? + Where are the critical gaps in accountability, protection, and response? + How can we better connect efforts, reduce duplication, and amplify underrepresented voices? |
| Numun Fund Session Part 1 | |
| Secure Messaging in 2025 and What Comes Next? | Join the Phoenix R&D team for a conversation on what secure messaging looks like in 2025—and where it's headed next. We'll explore current trends, emerging gaps, and how evolving privacy technologies and federated protocols are reshaping the landscape. This session invites input from developers, advocates, and end users alike to help define the future of secure, user-centered communication. Come share your insights and help us imagine what comes next. |
| Sketch It Out: Unblock Your Brain and Spark Creative Flow | Feeling stuck? Overwhelmed? In this guided circle, we’ll use simple sketching and visual thinking to unlock creativity, ease mental clutter, and see familiar problems in a new light. No drawing skills needed—just a willingness to explore with pen and paper. Through a series of playful prompts and reflections, you’ll learn how visual expression can: + Calm a busy or anxious mind Help externalize and reframe challenges + Tap into intuitive, nonlinear thinking + Make space for clarity, insight, and even joy. Come as you are, leave with a few lines on a page and a lighter mind |
| TFGBV, Disinformation, and Platform Accountability in the Indo-Pak Conflict of 2025 | In May 2025, the Indo-Pak military escalations spilled into the digital sphere, where women and gender minorities became deliberate targets of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), gendered disinformation, and hate speech. Drawing on DRF's ""Digital Battlegrounds"" research and real-time monitoring from both sides of the border, this Circle will examine how online misogyny, AI-generated disinformation, and nationalist propaganda intersected during the conflict. Participants will explore platform accountability gaps, the role of algorithms in amplifying harm, and the urgent need for cross-border solidarity and policy reform in high-conflict contexts. |
| The Practice of Joy: Sustaining Hope in the Tech Justice Movement | In tech justice work, the harms and their impact of Big Tech often take center stage. Still, joy, humor, and creativity are also powerful tools of resistance, advocacy, and for sustaining hope in the present moment. This participatory circle invites you to reflect on the strategies that sustain hope and energy in movements and share moments when joy emerged in your work, even amidst struggle. This Circle reframes joy as a core strategy that sustains organizations and networks working on urgent issues, while disrupting oppressive systems, resisting burnout, and helping us imagine futures worth building Reflections and strategies shared will be put into a collective "Practices of Joy" Zine. This living resource will offer inspiration and concrete strategies for weaving it into our ongoing work. |
| Meta's Shifting Moderation Model: Rethinking Trusted Partner Escalations | This Circle will focus on Meta's evolving policy and enforcement architecture, explore the emerging gaps it creates, and examine how the role of trusted partners is being redefined-sometimes without clarity, consistency, or sufficient capacity. Meta is undergoing a fundamental shift in its content moderation strategy. With the rollback of automatic filtering systems-especially on politically sensitive content-there's an increasing reliance on post-hoc moderation and human escalation pathways. This shift re-centers the importance of trusted partner escalation channels, particularly for high-risk regions where content takedowns can mean the erasure of vital human rights documentation and community voices. |
| VPN Guild | At last year's Global Gathering, a group of VPN developers sat down and asked: what if we actually joined forces? Not just to build better tech, but to push advocacy forward, share expertise, set real standards for security and privacy - and keep competition fair. That question sparked the VPN Guild - an industry-wide association of VPN services. Now we're circling back: is this experiment working, what challenges do we face, what new doors are opening, and how can we shape the future together? |
| VPN Providers: Building a Unified Front to Ensure Our Collective Sustainability | The fight for a free and open internet is multifaceted, with countless VPN-focused groups are working on parallel tracks. While this diversity is a strength, it can lead to fragmented efforts and duplicated work. This Circle aims to bridge these gaps by creating a space for urgent, strategic collaboration focused on sharing resources, knowledge, and tools. Potential discussion points: What are our common needs as service providers? How can we create a practical framework for sharing and co-developing open-source VPN tools and infrastructure to avoid reinventing the wheel? What initiatives and technology are helping reduce the costs of operation? How can we present ourselves as a united front to attract more funding from governments and the private sector We encourage VPN service providers, researchers, technology developers, adopters, and funders to join this crucial conversation. |
| Who’s Writing Our Story? Documenting the why as well as the how | Who decides what gets remembered, and why? Join this interactive session exploring how we document our organizations, our movements, and the moments that shape our lives. Participants will dive into the politics of memory, the power of storytelling, and the practical tools we use to capture and preserve our work. From everyday digital records to community archives, participants will reflect on how to safeguard our stories and facts, without losing critical context along the way. |
| Which free software alternative for which needs | Migrating from software provided by tech giants or VC-funded companies towards self-hosted open-source software is important to ensure your data is not held hostage. But not all those are created equal: some are more complex to migrate to, miss features that some think essential, or have other limitations that are hard to find before migrating to it. Participants will discuss different experience with different free or open-source software so each can find the one that fits their use case. |
| Mapping Emerging Digital Rights Threats | What should we be measuring to prepare for the future of digital rights? Based on your work and experience, what major digital rights threats do you foresee emerging globally in the next decade? And as a community, how can we prepare? Join this interactive brainstorming session to share your insights, identify measurement priorities, and help shape a collective response to the evolving digital landscape. |
| Internet Measurement Research Questions and Ideas | Internet measurement data is only as valuable as the questions it helps us answer. What research questions should we be asking? What insights do you hope to uncover through internet censorship data? Join this interactive brainstorming session to share your ideas, highlight pressing research needs, and help shape the future direction of censorship measurement and analysis. |
| Are You My Measurement Tool? | Have you ever experienced an Internet shutdown or censorship event, but then didn’t know which open Internet measurement tool to turn to? Join the Open Measurement Gathering groups (Censored Planet, IODA, M-Lab and OONI) in a workshop designed to help guide you through which Internet measurement tool you need. Following Global Gathering, the OMG groups will release a public guide on which internet measurement datasets to refer to depending on the type of internet shutdown or censorship event you’re investigating. |
| Capacity Building in Community Contexts: Needs, Pedagogies, and Emerging Challenges | This Circle will explore how capacity building processes can better respond to community realities, focusing on training needs, pedagogies and tools that support meaningful learning, and the challenges posed by AI in education. It will be a space to exchange experiences and collectively reflect on approaches rooted in community priorities. It builds on ongoing regional training processes and aims to link community-based experiences with global debates on digital inclusion and emerging technologies. |
| Surveillance Technologies and Organized Crime: Impacts and Resistance | Organized crime is increasingly used as a justification for deploying surveillance technologies such as facial recognition, drones, and mass data collection. This Circle will explore how these measures, often introduced in the name of public safety, can undermine human rights, enable unchecked state power, and disproportionately impact marginalized communities. Together, participants will exchange experiences, analyze regional trends, and discuss strategies for building security approaches that respect rights and democratic values. |
| Queer Meetup | Join us on the second day of the Global Gathering for a queer gathering! We will hold space for LGBGTQI+ folks to meet each other and talk about our experiences in the digital rights space. This facilitated discussion will give participants a chance to meet new people, talk about their experiences at Global Gathering and elsewhere, and share ideas about other circles we would like to have in the Queer Rights space on day 3 of the Gathering. This space is an intersectional queer feminist space that embraces emotion and embodiment and is meant to be explicitly decolonial, antiracist, and transfeminist. We encourage new people to attend, and allies with a lot of experience in digital rights to make themselves available to our new community members. If you need any accommodations to attend that we can help with, such as arranging seats in a specific way, please let the organizer know. We also welcome whisper translation! |
| Queer Bodies and Identities Under Threat in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Region. | In the vibrant landscapes of Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), the richness of diverse cultures and identities shines brightly. However, behind this colorful surface, many queer and trans individuals face challenges that can feel like dark clouds obscuring the sun. People who identify as queer, trans, and non-binary often struggle for acceptance and safety, as societal norms and legal frameworks can sometimes push them into the shadows.|This circle aims to discuss safety and security trends faced by LGBTIQ+ communities in the SWANA region, especially during wars and armed conflicts, and explore creative and resilient ways these communities use to stay safe and connected. |
| The Role of Data and Tech During Elections & its Effect on Human Rights | Participants will discuss government usage of data-intensive technologies - which goes hand-in-hand with the involvement of private companies - during election cycles. Participants will discuss risks involved, and what can be done to avoid abuse of voters' data during the the election cycle. Additionally, they will play a game of cards, based on Privacy International's data and election's checklist, and be given a copy of the card game as a gift to take home. This session will be co-hosted by various partners from different regions. |
| Queer Bodies and Identities Under Threat in the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) Region. | In the vibrant landscapes of Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), the richness of diverse cultures and identities shines brightly. However, behind this colorful surface, many queer and trans individuals face challenges that can feel like dark clouds obscuring the sun. People who identify as queer, trans, and non-binary often struggle for acceptance and safety, as societal norms and legal frameworks can sometimes push them into the shadows.This circle aims to discuss safety and security trends faced by LGBTIQ+ communities in the SWANA region, especially during wars and armed conflicts, and explore creative and resilient ways these communities use to stay safe and connected. |
Booth & Village Descriptions
| APC Village | APC | |
| Calyx Village | Calyx Institute | |
| Circumvention Technology Village | Tor Project & Guardian Project | |
| Luminate Village | ||
| Open Measurement Gathering (OMG) Village | Open Measurement Group (OMG) | |
| Queer Rights Village | Global Gathering Attendee Coalition | The Queer Rights booth will provide space for LGBGTQI+ attendees to this year’s Global Gathering. We have a welcome circle on day 2, and space for more circles on Day 3- tell us your ideas! This space is an intersectional queer feminist space that embraces emotion and embodiment and is meant to be explicitly decolonial, antiracist, and transfeminist. We encourage new people to stop by, and allies with a lot of experience in digital rights to make themselves available to our new community members. |
| Regional Conversations A | ||
| Regional Conversations B | ||
| SWANA Village |
| Booth | ||
| Abrimos.info: TeseoETL revolutionize your data management | Abrimos.info | TeseoETL is an open-source, user-friendly data processing framework developed by Abrimos.info to simplify how journalists, researchers, and civic tech organizations access, transform, and utilize public data. Designed specifically with transparency and democratic accountability in mind, TeseoETL automates complex data workflows, enabling teams to quickly integrate data from multiple sources, streamline analysis, and generate strategic insights efficiently. Whether monitoring elections, tracking public procurement, or enhancing government transparency, TeseoETL makes it easy to turn raw, dispersed data into actionable knowledge. With a flexible design adaptable to diverse contexts across Latin America, TeseoETL helps organizations strengthen their digital infrastructure, empower communities with reliable data, and drive tangible impact toward more open and accountable governance. |
| Amnezia VPN | Amnezia VPN | Amnezia VPN is an open-source project that helps people bypass internet censorship and protect their privacy. Stop by to get an update on their tools and research into how censorship is evolving, especially in authoritarian contexts. while learning how they tracks and analyzes website blocks across different regions. Amnezia will also be creating an interactive space that connects art and technology. Stop by to Listen to a playlist of songs banned in Russia for political, queer, or cultural reasons; Browse books with real examples of censored or redacted content; Contribute your own stories of censorship in music, literature, media, or code from your country to build a shared archive of artistic and digital resistance. |
| Article19 & Yubico | ||
| BIRN's Digital Rights Monitoring and Research on Southeast Europe | Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) | BIRN's booth will showcase the organisation's work on conducting systematic monitoring and in-depth research, with a strong focus on surveillance and censorship in the Western Balkans, as well as broader digital rights violations in ten Southeast Europe countries. The booth will also serve as an interactive community space for participants to engage with the team, be presented with, and ask questions on BIRN monitoring tools, methodologies, and recent research publications. Researchers, monitors, civil society representatives, and journalists are especially encouraged to participate |
| Claw Back Your Data | Lockdown Systems | Cyd is an open source project that helps users backup their data from X/Twitter, optionally migrate their tweets to Bluesky, and then delete what they want from X. The booth will demo how Cyd works, and assist attendees to delete or backup their data. (If you want to delete all your tweets, request an archive from X ahead of time.) The tech platforms that we all rely on are controlled by a tiny group of powerful billionaires who profit off our data, often selling it to AI companies and marketers. Learn about Cyd to claw back control of your data from Big Tech. |
| Disrupt the business of harm: Make Surveillance-Tech Less Profitable | Coalition for Surveillance-Tech Accountability: Freedom House, Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, & FIND | Freedom House and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre ('BHRRC') have developed complementary reporting templates that civil society actors can utilize to hold abusive surveillance firms accountable for facilitating human rights violations. These forms can be filled out and submitted to governments and investors, to both expose and hold accountable the corporate actors responsible for facilitating harms. Come by to checkout these forms, and learn about their investigative research into the companies behind these technologies. |
| Censored Planet | Censored Planet | Censored Planet is a research lab that investigates how internet access is being shaped and restricted around the world. As censorship tactics become more complex and harder to detect, we develop new ways to study these systems and understand who they affect. We focus on internet measurement, network security, and privacy to produce research and tools that support journalists, civil society, and the broader internet freedom community. |
| Curious Shapes | Curious Shapes | Come and learn about some of the (many!) ways Curious Shapes has helped different projects, organizations and initiatives with communication, research and other strategic consultancy work. |
| Digital Citizenship Helpline: Community-Centered Digital Safety | Digital Citizenship | The Digital Citizenship Helpline is a support initiative that provides personalized digital safety assistance to women, activists, and at-risk communities across Tunisia and the Maghreb region. The booth highlights inclusive, community-led approaches to addressing cyberviolence, with tools, case insights, and real-world practices designed to make digital spaces safer and more accessible. |
| De|Center | De|Center | The De|Center works with decentered communities to make concrete changes to technology tools that address systemic injustice and advance human rights. They do research and documentation with marginalized and criminalized communities globally, and translate their insights into concrete recommendations for changes to tech products and features. Stop by and explore opportunities for collaboration. |
| DT Institute, VPN, Datacasting, Off Grid Communications | DT Institute | DT Institute will showcase their cutting edge VPN, a cool datacasting method to send content to millions even during internet shutdowns,. They will also demo a comprehensive information distribution and communications apparatus that they have put together for environments of high persistent threat that may be completely offline. |
| Effective Altruism: How Can We Respond? | Luminate | A 'tech oligarchy' is emerging in the US, with Big Tech's power and control over our governments, societies and lives being exposed like never before. Amidst the AI hype we're witnessing, business and political leaders are lauding the potential of AI to solve the world's most critical problems, moving the conversation away from addressing real-world harms of AI including discrimination, bias, and disinformation. Join for a drop-in session on effective altruism, the impact the movement is having on AI policy, and strategies for philanthropy and civil society to respond to this movement's incursion into the fields in which we work. This will follow an open space format where participants are free to join and leave the conversation as is useful for them. |
| From Surveillance to Safety: Community-Driven Approaches to Digital Accountability in South Asia | Digital Rights Foundation | This booth will serve as an interactive community space that explores South Asia's evolving digital landscape while serving as a meeting points for individuals working in digital rights in South Asia. Additionally, learn about DRF's Surveillance Accountability Initiative, which monitors and documents the use of surveillance technologies in Pakistan and the broader region, spotlighting the need for democratic oversight and transparency. Participants can also engage with DRF's Digital Security Helpline, South Asia's dedicated support service for online violence, and hear about anonymized case studies, digital safety games, and hands-on demos of DRF's protection tools and resources. DRF will also provide materials and mini-lessons on Platform Accountability, policy advocacy, content moderation, data governance, and AI governance. |
| Horizontal | Horizontal | Horizontal support activists, journalist and human right defenders with technology and trainings. Stop by their booth to see the demos of their two flagship products: a) - Tella (https://tella-app.org/): a free, open source tool to encrypt and hide files in your phone, and collect and share data even with limited or no internet connectivity or in the face of repression. b) Shira (https://shira.app/): a web app to help users develop the skills needed to identify and defeat phishing attacks on email and messaging apps.. They would also love to get your feedback and requests for their apps, and can share more deeply on how they support organizations and activists! |
| IdHub: Decentralized Identity and Verifiable Credentials for Communities and Citizens | IdHub | Since 2023, IdHub has developed a digital identity management system that pools and shares infrastructure for the management and cost-sharing of digital open content services. They addresses the need for more decentralized, verifiable, secure, privacy-respecting, and user-friendly ways to manage identity-related information for authentication, authorization, and accreditation. IdHub is open-source source and is developed by a community of activists. The primary technologies implemented include Decentralized Identifiers, Verifiable Credentials and OpenID Connect technologies within common credential schemas defined their communities. It follows the EBSI model. These technologies allow for creating a trust chain that brings significant benefits to our communities.Stop by to give your feedback and learn how to contribute. |
| JOSA | JOSA | JOSA will showcase their work in empowering civil society organizations with open-source digital security tools, resources, and training. Visitors can explore practical solutions for protecting data, and building safer online environments. Additionally, their team will be on hand to answer questions, and connect with potential collaborators. |
| Logic(s) Magazine | Logic(s) Magazine | As the first queer Black and Asian tech magazine, Logic(s) is committed to interrogating the technologies (re)making our world, providing thoughtful analysis and centering the voices under constant threat of erasure, and yet essential to thinking about technology. They will be distributing sample copies of their most recent issues, and offering individual and institutional subscriptions and memberships. |
| Measurement Lab and the Internet Quality Barometer | Measurement Lab | Founded in 2009, Measurement Lab (M-Lab) is an open platform for studying Internet performance and neutrality over time. M-Lab recently completed the first phase of the Internet Quality Barometer project, and published the IQB Framework in June 2025. The IQB project seeks to redefine internet quality beyond the single metric of speed by using available data. As M-Lab continues the IQB project to build a tool to score Internet quality, we are also interested in exploring ways to score Internet freedom with existing data. Come by our booth and share your thoughts! |
| Mobile Forensics and Mobile Auditing with SocialTIC | SocialTIC | Learn about the methodologies and resources SocialTic uses to perform mobile forensics and mobile application audits. These resources are designed to be open, collaborative, and community-oriented. |
| Psychological First Aid: Tools for Care and Connection by Vita Activa | Vita Activa | Participants will partake in guided discussion, role-play, and reflective practices to be introduced to Psychological First Aid (PFA) - tools for care and connection created by Vita Activa. Learn how to recognize distress, offer immediate support, and connect peers with further resources. This booth will provide opportunities to participants to engage in guided discussions, role-play, and reflective practices so they can obtain concrete skills they can apply in spaces, activist contexts, and everyday life. |
| Open Source Design Collective | Open Source Design | Come and learn about what the volunteers at Open Source Design (OSD) do, and what they have supported over the collective's 10+years of existing. They will also offer a 'Design/Usability/UX/UI clinic' where you can bring your open source projects to speak about your design and usability needs. Questions they can support you with include: How to plan for a design project in OSS? Where is their funding available? What does openness and transparency look like in design? How can an OSS project learn from what other OSD designers in the network have produced? And of course, how to get involved as a maintainer or contributor as we evolve and grow the practice of design in OSS. |
| Operator Foundation | Operator Foundation | Operator Foundation, which develops open source software and hardware to support Internet freedom globally, will showcase open source secure communications hardware they have developed in the last 10 years. This includes tools for encrypted communication using satellites and radios during complete Internet shutdowns, as well as a tool developed to defeat the AI-based voiceprint identification being used to stop journalists from calling sources. |
| Palestine Booth | Solidarity Network of Palestinians and Allies | As the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and across Palestine is reaching its two year mark, we continue to witness Western powers' unconditional material support for it. In this booth, participants can learn about how to understand the genocide, the 77 years of ethnic cleansing and occupation, and explore how to engage their work more meaningfully in this topic. This space will also honor the lives of Palestinian martyrs, raise funds for trusted partners in Gaza, and run numerous Tatreez (embroidery) sessions to inspire conversations about solidarity through collective weaving. Most importantly, this cause will be intersected with other contexts of digital military warfare, to be in solidarity and collectively imagine what resistance against tech-assisted imperialism can look like. |
| Power to Voices | Oxfam Novib | Power to Voices is a digital platform designed with and for activists, movements, and rights defenders to connect, learn, collaborate, and organize in a space that centers safety, inclusion, and collective power amidst the increasing risky digital organizing environment. It's where communities of practice live, campaigns grow, and ideas are documented and shared. From learning spaces and resource hubs to group discussions and action planning. A home for sustained organizing in the digital age |
| Preserving Truth, Reclaiming Power - How to use Save by OpenArchive to get the boot off our necks ✊🏿✊🏾🤘🏽✊ | OpenArchive | People armed with mobile devices are history's first responders, documenting world events and amassing evidentiary records of injustice. SAVE by OpenArchive helps them Secure(ly) Archive,Verify, and Encrypt their crucial evidence. This will be a participatory demo where participants can foster strategic partnerships with those interested in learning how to use SAVE and other tactics to help their communities safely record and preserve their evidentiary media. |
| Secure Storyteller Network: Protecting Stories, Protecting Storytellers | Secure Storyteller Network | A meditation sound bath will be held from 16:30–17:30. Limited spaces available. Please contact SSN by 15:30 to reserve a spot, or arrive early.
This interactive booth offers hands-on digital security support tailored for filmmakers, artists, and content creators working in high-risk environments. Drop by with your questions, hear frontline stories, set up client-side encryption tools on your phone, and design your own creative protection plan. Most uniquely, pause for a mini sound bath with aTibetan singing bowl-let calmness stabilise resilience and help turn vulnerability into strength. |
| South Asia Village: Resisting Digital Injustice, Building Collective Resilience | Digital Rights Foundation | The South Asia Village booth is a collaborative regional space spotlighting community-led responses to digital authoritarianism, shrinking civic space, and corporate impunity across South Asia. Curated by Digital Rights Foundation and Digital Accountability Collective South Asia (DACSA), the South Asia Village will also serve as a collaborative hub to facilitate knowledge exchange and solidarity among South Asian activists, researchers, and technologists. Stop by to learn about South Asian initiatives focused on a wide breadth of topics including spyware accountability, digital security support, platform accountability, AI governance and data justice, among others. The booth will include materials and contributions from regional partners such as Hashtag Generation (Sri Lanka) and Digitally Right (Bangladesh), showcasing shared experiences and strategic differences across national contexts. Additionally, findings from upcoming regional research will be presented. |
| The ARISE Accountability Arcade: Feminist and Global South-Led Campaigns for Platform Accountability | Digital Empowerment Foundation - Project ARISE | The ARISE (Accountability and Responsibility in South's Ecosystems) Accountability Arcade is a feminist, Global South-led booth showcasing grounded, community-driven work on platform accountability. ARISE is a network of 50+ renowned organisations from across the Global South working on digital rights, governance, and justice. Digital Empowerment Foundation, the voluntary host of this year's ARISE Secretariat, is proposing this booth on behalf of the community. Through campaign displays, research spotlights, and interactive activities, ARISE members will present how communities across the South are confronting platform harms, algorithmic bias, and digital exclusion. It's a space to exchange strategies, share experiences, and build collective visions for fairer, more accountable digital ecosystems. |
| Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean | Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean | Learn more about Urgent Action Fund Latin America and the Caribbean, a regional feminist fund which contributes to the sustainability and strengthening of activists and their movements, offering quick and agile support in situations of risk and opportunity They support the resistances, struggles and demands of the defenders in the transformation of injustice and inequality systems, putting feminist integral protection and care in the center. They understand that in order to carry out our work, it is vital to think about feminist digital infrastructures from the South that are not privative and that allow us to put care at the center of technologies. |
| VPN Generator: Get your own VPN here | VPN Generator | VPN Generator lets you run your own VPN hub - you control the connection and decide who joins. It's a VPN for your crew, on your terms. Check out this booth and try two live demos: VPN Generator, where you distribute access to others, protected by a six-word passphrase only you ever see; and VPN Socket, a paid, influencer-branded VPN for instant personal use. See how easy it is to connect and help others bypass censorship and access a safe, private internet. |
| WITNESS' Deepfake Rapid Response Force and AI Detection for Human Rights Defenders | WITNESS | WITNESS is known for it's AI detection trainings, either catered to fact-checkers, journalists and other civil society involved in elections, or with civil society facing information environments needing in these skills. The training sessions cover topics such as the capabilities and evolution of generative AI techniques, use of synthetic media in the context of elections, current AI detection approaches and introduction to the work of the Deepfakes Rapid Response Force. Stop by this booth to learn about the harms and benefits in relying on AI detection tools, how to incorporate tools into the fact-checking pipeline, and other research and learnings from the Deep Fake Rapid Response Force. |
| Fear on the Net: How the Venezuelan Internet Broke After the Elections. | VE sin Filtro / Conexion Segura y Libre | "The Networks of Control report and Beyond" documents the most dramatic escalation in digital repression in Latin America: Venezuela. The team will share details and research that couldn't be shared publicly, and how they collected this evidence - -from real-time network tests to OSINT. Space will be created to discuss tools, tactics, and what comes next. The post-election crisis in Venezuela has marked a breaking point, with digital repression becoming the norm: blocking apps like Signal, X, TikTok, YouTube (and now targeting WhatsApp), silencing transparency efforts, persecuting activists, excluding opposition candidates, and manipulating voting data. Case studies will reveal how social media posts led to arrests, and how tactics such as drones, doxxing, viralized arrests, and device searches were used to intimidate protesters and civil society. |
