RightsCon Program

Hosted both online and in-person, RightsCon 2025 will mark our second hybrid summit. The program will support six session formats intended to foster moments of connection and collaboration, and a schedule which will enable live participation across different time zones.

Based on how you anticipate joining us for RightsCon 2025, you can choose to host your session online or in-person. Online sessions are run entirely on our custom summit platform, while in-person sessions are held at our venue (to be announced in May). You can pick either option, but once you submit the proposal form, your selection is final.

Based on timezones, budgetary, and team capacity constraints this year, we have decided to reduce the amount of sessions that include hybrid elements. For the roundtable and private meeting formats only, there will be a select number of sessions that will be elevated to support a two-way exchange between online and in-person participants. If you are a session proposer for these formats, and are interested in being considered for hybrid elevation, we want to know why bringing both online and in-person participants together is necessary to support your session goals. Please note that unlike online sessions, hybrid sessions will only be hosted from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. local time, and so may not be ideal for the timezones you intend to reach to participate. 

For more information on our program structure and strategy this year, check out our Call for Proposals launch blog, where you can find the changes we’re making for this RightsCon cycle thanks to the valuable feedback we received from our community during our consultation calls.

RightsCon’s program is sourced through an open Call for Proposals. The Call for Proposals for RightsCon 2025 closed on June 2, 2024.

RightsCon’s global platform can raise the profile of your work and provide direct access to thousands of participants around the world with the power and expertise to take your ideas to the next level. RightsCon equips session organizers with the space and tools to build skills, networks, and strategies for action. 

You’ll receive resources, support and training at every stage of the program-building cycle, including proposal writing trainings, resources on session design and production, ticket discount codes to share with the members of your session, tailored facilitation training for in-person, online, and hybrid environments, and orientation sessions before the summit to help you prepare and network with other organizers.

The program is broad in scope and supports many topics of continued importance for our community, including, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, Content Governance, Online Hate and Violence, Internet Access and Inclusion, Business and Human Rights, and Tactics and Contexts for Activists.

We also look for new issues to prompt exploration. Recent summits introduced program tracks on art and activism, human rights-centered design, and humanitarian action, and intersecting themes on health, environmental sustainability, disability rights, and gender justice.

You can find the list of program categories for RightsCon 2025 in our Guide to a Successful Proposal. These categories will inform the final tracks that participants use to navigate the program and find sessions of interest.

Access Now works with a Program Committee to review the Call for Proposals. Every year, we invite academics, technologists, creators, activists, business leaders and policymakers from around the world to chair the Program Committee and help us select proposals based on our core evaluation criteria (relevant, actionable, original, diverse, and participatory). We also look holistically across categories and take other factors into account, such as gender and region, in order to create the strongest and most inclusive program possible.

RightsCon positions our community to secure commitments, develop resources and campaigns, and set standards for human rights. Our summit has launched government initiatives, such as Tech for Democracy and the Technologist Code of Ethics, prompted statements from UN experts, produced coalitions to fight internet shutdowns, oppose the extensive surveillance of migrants in Latin America, and to prevent the misuse of digital identity systems, and established principles for non-discrimination in AI and the online sale of medicines.

Learn more about RightsCon’s impact in our most recent Outcomes Report.

RightsCon offers a Community Support Fund, available to those who wish to attend RightsCon in-person or online. The fund offers travel support for in-person participation(including travel, accommodation, among other travel-related costs), as well as direct financial support for online participation (including connectivity, translation and other services).

While the fund is open to everyone, we prioritize applications from session organizers, facilitators, and speakers from communities who are traditionally underrepresented in global convenings. However as a nonprofit organization with limited resources, we are unfortunately unable to guarantee funding to every applicant. Applications to the Fund will be open in early June and will be available through the RightsCon Proposal Portal.