EngageMedia is organising Open Tech Camp 2025 – an unconference (or user-generated conference) that brings together digital technologists and social activists from across Asia-Pacific in a collaborative learning space dedicated to human rights tech.
This two-day event fosters co-learning on privacy-respecting, secure, and open digital technology, enabling participants to build capacity and resilience in the face of digital threats. It is specifically designed for:
- Technologists interested in developing or customising tools for social change initiatives.
- Human rights defenders addressing internet freedom, digital rights, and online safety issues.
- Advocates, academics, and civil society practitioners passionate about advancing inclusive and fair digital ecosystems.
If you’re committed to exploring the intersection of digital technology and human rights advocacy, this tech camp is for you!
At EngageMedia, human rights tech refers to digital tools, practices, and strategies designed to uphold and protect human rights in the digital age. This includes:
- Privacy-respecting: Tools and practices that prioritise user consent, data minimisation, and transparency, with no tracking enabled by default.
- Secure: Emphasis on end-to-end encryption, robust authentication, and resilience against data breaches or surveillance.
- Open: Built using open-source code, protocols, and formats to ensure accountability, adaptability, and equitable access.
Human rights tech isn’t just about apps and software – it encompasses strategies for digital security and approaches to safeguarding the most marginalised and vulnerable communities online.
An unconference is a participant-driven event that breaks away from traditional conference formats. Instead of predetermined sessions, the agenda is built collaboratively, enabling participants to decide the flow and focus of discussions.
At the tech camp, you can:
- Lead a co-learning session on a topic where you have knowledge or expertise; or
- Join and contribute to sessions led by others, offering insights, solving challenges, or brainstorming innovative ideas.
Everyone’s active involvement ensures an inclusive and dynamic learning experience – whether you’re leading, collaborating, or asking questions.
Inspired by wiki-style, user-generated events like BarCamp and Foo Camp, this two-day tech camp will serve as a platform for collaborative learning on safe data and content management, secure and private communications, and censorship and surveillance circumvention. The tech camp sessions will centre on self-hosted digital security, free and open access to internet, information control and data governance.
To aid planning, they invite digital technologists and social activists in the Asia-Pacific region to register online. Please answer the needs assessment questions as fully as possible. They expect to confirm participants by 31 December 2024.