We’re excited to bring RightsCon to Europe. Here’s why.
RightsCon Brussels 2017 will be held from Wednesday, March 29 – Friday, March 31. Our venue will be the Crowne Plaza Brussels – Le Palace. Tickets will be on sale soon, but you can register your interest right now to get updates and find out how to get involved.
Since 2011, we’ve brought the digital rights community to many power centers around the world. Each year, the summit series alternates between our Silicon Valley event and our regionally rotating conference, held in locations that are hubs of influence and can have global impact. This year, we’re bringing RightsCon to Brussels, the heart of European politics.
Access Now has had an office in Brussels for five years, and currently has four European staff who are dedicated to digital rights issues in Europe. Our work with the European Commission, Parliament, and Council, in partnership with the European Digital Rights community, and our relationship with tech platforms, means that we are increasingly well placed to convene stakeholders from across sectors and regions globally to participate in this important event.
It has become even more evident this year than in the past that Brussels is a major global power center for the internet. E.U. lawmakers can serve as policymakers for internet users around the world, and we want to make sure that they hear the voices of internet users, and especially those of users at risk.
Here is a small taste of key global issues that are being played out in Europe:
- Anti-trust legislation
- Net Neutrality
- The “right to be forgotten”
- Data privacy
- Content restrictions
- Data center locations and cross-border regulation
Our aim at RightsCon 2017 is to open the Brussels “bubble” up to our passionate, increasingly diverse, global community. At RightsCon Silicon Valley 2016, we brought more than 1,100 participants from 84 countries and 500+ organizations to San Francisco. We want to help bring more even more people and groups from, and to, Europe. Only with your help can we ensure that internet users’ voices are not just heard, but included in the decision-making that impacts the future of the free and open internet.
This will be much, much more than a European-regional conference. RightsCon is a big global tent, and we invite everyone, everywhere to share their concerns, ideas, and solutions, so that together we can chart the pathway for defending and extending our fundamental rights and freedoms.
We encourage all interested stakeholders — groups and individuals alike — to get involved, and we will soon be sharing our call for program session proposals. This year’s RightsCon will have public workshops, debates, roundtables, and lightning talks, as well as plentiful opportunities for groups to convene bilateral meetings. In short, however you want to get involved, there’s a RightsCon for you.
We hope you’re excited — we know we are!
For more information or questions about RightsCon, how to get involved, or how to become a sponsor, contact Nick Dagostino at [email protected].