The RightsCon Program

Proposal Support

What can you achieve with the RightsCon program

The RightsCon program is built to facilitate cross-sector connections, foster productive collaboration, and ultimately, turn conversation into concrete outcomes. Each session is designed with a distinct goal in mind to help you move your work forward and achieve your outcomes: 

Dialogue

Explore perspectives around a thematic or regional issue area

Roundtable

Consult and collect input from participants on a project, practice or policy

Workshop

Build skills, co-create resources, and develop tactics


Private Meeting

Collaborate and build support with invited stakeholders

Lightning Talk

Deliver a concise call to action

Tech Demo

Showcase a tool, technology, or technical project

Meet our community

Every year, the RightsCon program is sourced through our annual Call for Proposals. Over 600 organizations hosted sessions for RightsCon Costa Rica. Meet a selection of our session organizers below:

Amazon
Amnesty International
Cisco
Digital Security Lab
Discord
Global Partners Digital
Human Rights Watch
Internews
Meta
Wikimedia
Center for Democracy & Technology Logo
Association for Progressive Communications Logo
Berkman Klein Center for internet & society at Harvard University Logo
CIPESA Logo
Dangerous Speech Project Logo
Freedom House Logo
Open Net Logo
Privacy International Logo
Small Media Logo
The Engine Room Logo

Program Highlights

Regulating online platforms

The Manila Principles, a civil society initiative established at RightsCon Manila (2015), set out guidelines on internet intermediary liability. Since then, the push for platform accountability has led to deeper partnerships between company decision-makers, such as Facebook’s Strategic Response team, and activists in our summit space.

Program Highlights

Responding to shutdowns

The #KeepItOn coalition, a network of more than 220 organizations from 99 countries, was formed at RightsCon Silicon Valley (2016). The summit also marked the first international consensus on the definition of an internet shutdown.

Program Highlights

Healthcare on the internet

With internet pharmacies and telemedicine on the rise, the Prescription Justice Institute developed the Brussels Principles to ensure safety and quality in the sale of medical products online. Named for RightsCon Brussels (2017), the principles continue to inform approaches to digital health, including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Program Highlights

Human rights principles in AI

At RightsCon Toronto (2018), Access Now and Amnesty International launched a landmark declaration on the right to equality and nondiscrimination in machine learning. The Toronto Declaration addresses the risk of human rights harms associated with artificial intelligence technology.

Program Highlights

Combating hate speech

Equality Labs released a report at RightsCon Tunis (2019) detailing the failures of Facebook India’s content moderation policies to protect caste, religious, gender, and queer minorities from hate speech. The report has been cited widely, most recently in an open letter that prompted the resignation of policy chief Ankhi Das.

Program Highlights

Digital ID

Created in a closed-door Solve My Problem session at RightsCon Tunis (2019), the #WhyID coalition asks key decision-makers to consider the human impact of digital identity programs. Signatories include Audrey Tang, (Digital Minister, Taiwan), and Charles Mok (Legislative Councillor on IT, Hong Kong).

Program Highlights

Ban Biometric Surveillance

During RightsCon Online 2021, 25 new civil society organizations, and over 500 individuals, joined the #BanBS global coalition, a powerful new network working together to ban biometric surveillance. The coalition had evolved from a Solve My Problem session at RightsCon Online 2020.

Program Highlights

Developing a technologist code of ethics

United States Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power and New America Foundation CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter launched an initiative at RightsCon Online 2022 to develop a technologist code of ethics, in an effort by civil society and technologists to build a rights-respecting digital future.

Program Highlights

Safeguarding from harmful technologies

UN experts present at RightsCon Costa Rica (2023) issued a joint statement calling for greater transparency, oversight, and regulation to address the negative impacts of new and emerging digital technologies.