The Story of Diversity, Security & Love in Southern Africa
Slide deck (shared on Cryptpad): https://cryptpad.fr/file/#/2/file/aWdKYUCnwAeQ5j2Q3+fr6cwe/
Who:
- Natasha Msonza, Digital Society of Africa
- Tawanda Mugari, Digital Society of Africa
Date: Wednesday April, 22
Time: 11:00am EST / 3:00pm UTC+0 (other times below)
What: Digital Society of Zimbabwe, now Digital Society of Africa, was one of the first collective of digital security trainers in the Internet Freedom space. It was established in 2015 because of the need they saw from at-risk groups. Join Tawanda Mugari & Natasha Msonza, and learn about the beauty and love of the sub-saharan african community, how they approach digital security given the diversity of ethnicities and languages in the region, and how they have approached serving LGBTIQ and environmental activists. In addition, find about future plans of their newly banded collective!
Bios:
Natasha Msonza is Co-Founder of Digital Society of Africa (formerly DSZ), and digital security trainer. On DSA team she manages operations and specializes in undertaking organizational security audits.
Tawanda Mugari is Co-founder of Digital Society of Africa (formerly DSZ) and geek in chief. On DSA team he manages all technical issues around digital security trainings and organizational security audits.
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Notes
The story of our beginning
- The first logo of Digital Society of Zimbabwe included our national bird; eventually we evolved to include all of Africa to be inclusive of all our needs
- The new logo of Digital Society Africa is reflective of the work we are doing outside of our own country
What Digital Society Africa focuses on today:
- organization assessments and audits
- digital security training and awareness raising
- sustainable accompaniment (protracted support for organizations)
- research: internet governance, infosec, security practices, usability testing
- training of trainers (support the network of trainers here in Africa)
Our alternative work model:
- we do have a physical office but we allow our community to work wherever they can
- all of us have other full-time work (fellowship, college professor, etc)
- people work on projects according to their availability and skill
- everyone works as consultants of DSA (flexible work schedule); we can be nimble to adjust to external forces
- we rely on each other's skills when working with organizational accompaniment
Challenges
- reputation matters in Zim; it was hard to get started early
- funding will be a constant challenge
- we make due with project-based funding
- organizations and individuals at risk do not have funding for information security work
