Asia-Pacific Digital Rights Festival 2023

Deadline: 28-Feb-23

EngageMedia has launched the Asia-Pacific Digital Rights Festival 2023 that aims to strengthen the regional digital rights movement through creativity, conversation, and celebration.

After over two years of virtual convenings and limited networking opportunities, the Asia-Pacific Digital Rights Festival will bring together changemakers from the Asia-Pacific to strengthen the regional digital rights movement through creativity, conversation, and celebration. The week-long Festival in May 2023 will be the biggest physical gathering focused on the Asia-Pacific, with various sessions spread out across the whole city of Chiang Mai.

The Festival aims to infuse the movement with an even broader range of allied actors: digital and human rights advocates, journalists, media-makers, artists, designers, technologists, youth representatives, and more changemakers. It is the culmination of a series of country-wide and regional digital rights forums that began in 2022, and a successor to the Coconet digital rights camps held in recent years.

EngageMedia is co-creating the Festival agenda with their partners and participants. By bringing in diverse voices and perspectives from the region, the Festival aims to create and strengthen bridges across the media, technology, and human rights fields.

Why should you attend the Festival?

• Local and regional contexts on digital rights issues
  • Festival attendees can expect a number of spaces to discuss important conversations and collaborate on addressing vital and pressing digital rights issues, including but not limited to:
    • Extremism and Hate Speech
    • Gender Justice
    • Climate Justice
    • Digital Authoritarianism
    • Data Justice
    • Disinformation
    • Media Freedom & Censorship
    • Challenging Big Tech
    • Youth Engagement
    • Digital Labour
    • Digital Security
    • New Money
    • Access & Inclusivity
    • Open and Secure Technology
• Diversity of participants and venues
  • The Festival sessions will be facilitated by a diverse group of changemakers and organisations from across the Asia-Pacific. Similar to the Coconet Digital Rights Camp, the Festival team is taking great care to increase the participation of underrepresented and marginalised sectors in the digital rights space.
  • The Festival also aims to bring digital rights issues beyond the usual conference-style venues. They envision a unique range of venues for their various session formats.
• Variety of co-created sessions
  • Go Broad
    • Keynote Speeches
    • Panel Discussions
    • Parallel Events by Partners
  • Go Deep
    • Talks, Roundtables, and Other Discussions
    • Training and Workshops
    • Localization Sprints
    • Hackathons
    • Tech Labs
  • Go Celebrate
    • Film Festival
    • Art Exhibits
    • Musical & Other Entertainment
    • Self-Care and Fitness

Why should you organise a session at the Festival?

• Spread your story to a diverse, regional audience
  • The Festival will be a unique opportunity to address and interact with a captive audience of changemakers.
• Get a wealth of feedback and discourse
  • Hear directly from changemakers about the region’s pressing digital rights issues.
• Find collaborators and co-creators
  • Have a project in mind? The Festival is an opportunity to pitch and jump-start your ideas.
• Get logistics support from EngageMedia
  • EngageMedia will assist session facilitators to look for suitable venues, conduct outreach and promotions around your event, and help with other logistical needs.
• Priority for travel sponsorships
  • EngageMedia will be sponsoring the food and board of a limited number of Festival attendees. Individuals and organisations who will be selected to host and facilitate sessions will be given priority.

Why should you fund the Festival?

• Raise the profile of timely digital and human rights issues
  • COVID-19 has dramatically accelerated and normalised the authoritarian use of digital technologies. Digital surveillance has radically increased, with governments tightly tracking the movements and associations of their citizens. Big Tech, law enforcement, and other vested stakeholders have worked closely with governments to exploit the opportunity to expand their power and control.
  • Other regional risks and trends include the following:
    • Increases in human rights abuses
    • Backsliding on gender equality
    • Curtailment of freedom of expression and assembly
    • A rise in disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation, including the use of this trend for authoritarian purposes
    • Increased website blocks and takedowns, internet throttling, and shutdowns
  • The Festival is an opportunity to raise the profile of these issues to broader audiences, not only regionally but also globally.
• Allow changemakers to sustain their work and advocacy
  • Asia-Pacific civil society is resilient, with a long history and deep foundations, but it needs support to combat these digital rights issues. The Festival will be a large stage for changemakers to showcase their work and find support and collaborators within a broader range of allied actors.
• Join a group of distinguished organisations contributing to digital rights
  • Their current funders and partners include:
    • Sida
    • ARTICLE19
    • Association for Progressive Communications
    • Chiang Mai University’s School for Public Policy

For more information, visit EngageMedia.