This is it! We’re kicking off RightsCon Toronto today with more than 2,000 of the world’s leading experts on human rights and tech.
And while we’re excited to have so much of our community together in one place, we also recognize that there are countless more who are not able join us in person. Your voice is an important part of this effort to shape a better future for human rights, even if you can’t be in the room. Here are a few ways you can connect with the RightsCon community from anywhere in the world:
1. Watch the Psiphon live stream of Opening Ceremonies and several other key sessions. Psiphon is a free, open-source tool allowing internet users in even the most highly censored markets to access the full internet without restriction.
2. Join the conversation on social media. #RightsCon community members at the event and around the world will be participating in rich debate online. To keep up with #BestOfRightsCon highlights, we recommend you follow the official @RightsCon account on Twitter, along with Access Now’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram channels.
For the third year in a row, RightsCon is once again partnering with Meedan and Global Voices to bring you the RightsCon Translation Lab. Volunteers around the world will be facilitating deeper connections within our community and helping to make the event more accessible by translating Twitter highlights to and from Spanish, Arabic, and French. Be sure to follow each account to hear from these important voices!
3. Take action to support the global digital rights community and defend human rights online through Betterplace — our Toronto-based partner providing an important tool for RightsCon participants and changemakers around the world to identify opportunities to make an impact.
4. Explore the program and connect with community members. With 450 sessions and 1,000 speakers, the RightsCon program is a rich resource of information about important new research and tools in development, advocacy efforts from local communities to the United Nations, and all the most pressing questions on the future of human rights in the digital age. We encourage you to engage with speakers and to extend the conversations happening at RightsCon to your own communities.
Thank you for standing together in this fight to build a better world.