Adriana Balcazar is a Program Associate at Internews, where she works with tool developers, design experts, and digital security trainers to create feedback loops in which at-risk users can more effectively get what they need from their digital security tools. She also works with partners to develop new censorship circumvention technologies and make them more readily available for users. Having joined Internews in 2018, this is her first RightsCon and she is excited to learn more about what the rest of the community is doing to combat these issues. Contact info: [email protected]
Megan DeBlois is an Information Security Advisor and Technical Program Manager at Internews and is focused on work related to human centered design and security, organizational resilience for small civil society organizations, and more effective ways to share and ingest threat information research for high risk communities around the globe. Contact info: [email protected]
Jon Camfield directs Internews’ global digital safety and security programs, including projects such as SAFETAG.org, USABLE.tools and pluggabletransports.info. Connect with him on censorship circumvention, tool usability, digital security training, organizational security, and advancing the state of threat information sharing among civil society. Contact info: [email protected], and on Twitter and via Wire at @joncamfield. Signal available by request.
Kat Duffy is our Vice President for Global Technology Programs, and oversees Internews’ global cybersecurity, digital safety, and internet rights programming, including the work of our Global Tech Hub. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Initiative. If you want to know more about working with Internews, or have thoughts on what you need in your country to promote internet freedom, keep people safer online, or support civil society with technological tools, she wants to hear from you! Also, she’ll be moving to Tunis this Fall, so please reach out if you’re local and have great tips! Contact info: DM rightsduff on Twitter or email [email protected]
Ashley Fowler serves as a Technical Program Officer on the Global Technology team at Internews. In this role, Ashley works with digital security trainers, design experts, and tool developers to ensure that open source privacy and security tools are meeting the needs of at-risk users. Ashley is also interested in organizational security and improving digital security awareness and capacity within queer communities. Contact info: [email protected]
Andrew Ford Lyons is Director of Internews’ Global Technology Hub (GTH). Based out of Internews’ London office, encompasses an internationally distributed team of technologists. GTH is responsible for designing, building, and deploying secure, proven technology solutions for Internews’ local partners and programs in a variety of contexts, in the areas of Web applications, network systems, internet circumvention tools, digital security practices, and change management protocols. Contact info: [email protected]
Babette Ngene is the Director of Internews’ Global Internet Rights Programs, where she leads the strategy for the organization’s Internet Rights Programs focusing on freedom of expression online and offline, business and human rights, and privacy issues. Her works encompasses building local and international partnerships, targeted outreach, and overseeing relationships with various stakeholders such as businesses, academic institutions and civil society groups. Contact info: [email protected]
Brittany Piovesan is the Senior Program Officer for Internews’ Digital Rights Programs. She works to build the capacity of civil society organizations across the globe to promote and protect human rights online by providing legal, advocacy, and financial support to advocates around the world. Brittany is interested in learning more about the challenges faced by advocates, coalition building and your favorite kind of dumpling. Contact info: [email protected].
Rowan Reid is Internews’ Programs Manager for Journalist Safety. He works with journalists, media organizations and local and international NGO’s to build capacity and strengthen the support structures to protect and advance media freedom and overcome censorship. Rowan is keen to learn more about the work people are doing to prevent attacks on media and is keen to build local and global coalitions to support this work. Contact info: [email protected]
Haley Slafer is the Program Manager for Internews’ Global Technology portfolio, where she runs a number of global programs on internet freedom policy, online hate speech and misinformation, and digital safety and security, including the Safe Sisters fellowship program, which she co-founded (together with Defend Defenders) in 2017 as a way to lower barriers to digital security practice for women, to help them to take their digital lives into their own hands. Contact info: [email protected]
Dan Spealman is the Chief of Party on the USAID-funded INSPIRES project, which increases knowledge and capacity to respond to growing restrictions on democratic freedoms of association, assembly, and expression. INSPIRES uses machine learning to deepen understanding of civic space drivers and inform programmatic priorities for civil society; tests programmatic interventions to boost organizational resilience; and empowers local partners to address civic space shifts through flexible response support. Dan would love to hear from CSOs that are closely monitoring civic space dynamics in their country about how INSPIRES can best support them. Contact info: [email protected]
Panels and Workshops we’re leading or participating in:
Wednesday, June 12
- 10:30am: Beyond the Hype: AI innovation and human rights in the telecoms sector (Kat Duffy)
- 3:45pm: “Data Driven” Foreign Aid and “Digital Development” Strategies: Are we disrupting disenfranchisement – or scaling It? (Kat Duffy)
- 3:45pm: Lightning Talk: It took a year for civil society to start reacting to censorship in Ukraine (Mykola Kostynyan)
- 5:15pm: If you keep suggesting blockchain, I swear to God I will f—ing scream (Jon Camfield)
Thursday, June 13
- 9:00am: Creative Ways to Support Diverse Tool Teams (Ashley Fowler)
- 9:00am: Reverse-Engineering an RFP: Making Beneficiaries the Boss (Kat Duffy)
- 10:30am: Business for Better Cybersecurity: How the Private Sector Can Promote Economic Growth and Digital Rights (Babette Ngene)
Friday, June 14
- 9:00am: Let’s talk about local capacity, how to build, not kill (Mykola Kostynyan)
- 1:00pm: Making Tech Digestible: Adventures of digital security trainers in Sub-Saharan Africa (Haley Slafer)
(Banner photo: City of Tunis by USAID/Flickr/CC)