RightsCon 2025
Outcomes Report
Join us in reflecting on the discussions, insights, and strategies hosted at RightsCon 2025 (February 24-27), and explore the key outcomes, takeaways, and highlights from four impactful days in Taipei and online. This Outcomes Report is presented in three parts, which you can navigate below:
Coming soon!
Coming soon!
Part 1:
The RightsCon Community
RightsCon is proud to be a space shaped and led by its community. Each year, people from across regions and sectors – business leaders, technologists, activists, policymakers, journalists, philanthropists, researchers, and artists – come together with different experiences, ideas, and goals. What brings them to RightsCon is a shared willingness to engage, challenge, and collaborate in the search for a rights-respecting digital future.
We’re incredibly grateful for this vibrant community, whose members contribute their time, insight, and work to each edition. They launch campaigns, form new coalitions, share strategies, and push forward conversations on human rights in the digital age.
Since the first RightsCon in 2011, this community has grown and evolved, and we celebrate the impact it continues to make. Whether RightsCon 2025 was your first time joining us, or if you’re returning as a long-time participant, know that the community is the heart of RightsCon.
Read on to learn more about the people and networks that made RightsCon 2025 possible.
RightsCon in Taipei: our much-anticipated return to Asia
5,689
participants
(3,249 in-person,
2,440 online)
543
sessions
(638 in 2023)
3,249
in-person participants
(a new record!)
154
countries represented
(169 from 2023)
On the program:
Seventeen months after our last summit in Costa Rica, RightsCon 2025 had much to catch up on. The digital rights landscape has shifted significantly, shaped by ongoing geopolitical tensions, rising global conflicts, and the rapid growth of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. These dynamics were reflected throughout this year’s program.
With 543 total sessions, a decrease of nearly 15% from 2023, our schedule ran close to non-stop from Tuesday morning through to Thursday’s closing ceremony. This reduction was a direct outcome of community consultations following RightsCon Costa Rica, with the aim of creating a more focused and manageable program.
We recognize that 28% of surveyed participants still found the size of the program overwhelming to navigate. While RightsCon’s broad scope is part of what makes it unique, we’re committed to rethinking the program’s size for 2026 and beyond. We also heard the call for more flexible spaces to address urgent issues that fall outside our Call for Proposals. Looking ahead, we’re exploring ways to introduce more open, less-structured formats that facilitate rapid response and collective strategizing.
My work has always been local, so getting to hear how other countries approach similar work and the regional and global trends [was] eye-opening.
On participation:
RightsCon 2025 set a new record for in-person participation, with an impressive 3249 registered attendees, a 13% increase from 2023. The energy in the packed rooms and corridors of the Taipei International Convention Center was palpable. Our community also hosted a record-breaking 104 booths in the Community Village, highlighting a strong appetite for hallway conversations to spark synergies and collaboration.
By contrast, online participation saw a sharp drop, down 55% from RightsCon Costa Rica, even though overall online engagement remained steady compared to 2023. This decline reflects a broader trend of “online fatigue” we’ve observed across similar convenings. As we shape our plans for 2026, we’ll continue to monitor this shift and consider how to design an experience that balances accessibility with evolving participation preferences.
A global community
Number of participants per region
522
Africa
1,839
Asia Pacific
1,061
Europe
763
Latin America and the Caribbean
244
Middle East and North Africa
1,217
North America
A core part of our mission is to provide an inclusive platform for a global, and diverse community of human rights defenders. Over the years, we’ve introduced several initiatives to help make this possible — from the Community Support Fund, which facilitates the participation of individuals, groups and communities historically excluded from digital rights spaces, to our “no manel” (all-men panel) guideline, designed to promote gender diversity across the program.
One of the most important lessons from RightsCon Costa Rica was the need to prioritize visa support as a way to increase access to the summit. In 2025, we’re proud to have supported 362 participants in applying for Taiwan’s eVisa through the eCode process. This was made possible through our local partnership with Open Culture Foundation, and close cooperation with Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs. We also issued 746 visa invitation letters, and supported hundreds of participants in navigating different visa pathways to Taiwan.
“I had to process my visa at the very last hour of the summit, and the way [the team] helped me throughout, I’m so grateful for that. It truly made me feel that the RightsCon team valued my participation in the summit. That motivated me a lot to contribute more, and I felt like I belong to this community. I am so, so grateful for the team and your support. It means a lot.”
The Global Majority
Participants from the Global Majority made up 60% of participants at RightsCon 2025, an 8% increase from 2023. We were especially proud to see stronger representation from previously underrepresented countries in the region, including Indonesia, Myanmar, and Thailand.
Bringing Asia to RightsCon
As expected, the Asia-Pacific region led participation at RightsCon 2025, making up 32% of total participants, an impressive increase from 2023 (10%). Taiwan, ranked second in overall participation, followed by India (#4) and the Philippines (#10) among the most represented countries from the region.
Community Support Fund
At RightsCon 2025, the Community Support Fund supported 126 participants from 62 countries with a total of $216,656 in funding. This covered travel, accommodation, visa fees, stipends, internet access, and translation costs, with the goal of reducing barriers to participation for underrepresented voices.
On African representation:
We recognize the limited representation from the African continent, particularly in person, at our last summit in Costa Rica, largely due to visa-related challenges. In 2025, we were encouraged to see participants from countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa actively engaging, networking, and strategizing with peers in Taipei, a momentum we’re excited to build on as RightsCon heads to Africa in 2026.
The US stop-work order:
The executive order issued by the Trump administration in late January, which halted foreign aid spending and paused existing grants and contracts, had a significant impact on this year’s summit. Announced just weeks before RightsCon 2025, it led to a noticeable increase in cancellations, shifts from in-person to online participation, and a drop in expected registrations. Thanks to support from trusted partner organizations we were able to provide emergency funding to some affected participants, making their travel to Taipei possible. This disruption underscores the financial vulnerability faced by many individuals and organizations working to defend digital rights globally, and it should remain a priority theme for our next summit.
Looking ahead to 2026:
Every year, RightsCon welcomes new voices from countries and communities that have historically been underrepresented. For RightsCon 2026, we will place a particular focus on strengthening engagement across the African continent. We plan to work closely with regional partners to identify and support groups that could benefit from access to our global platform.
Supporting our community:
As part of our ongoing commitment to amplify voices and perspectives, we expanded our approach to the Community Support Fund, an initiative to ensure underrepresented members of our community can fully participate in RightsCon, whether in-person or online.
Each year, we collect your feedback and refine and adapt our approach, keeping our global mission front and center. In 2025, we doubled the investment into our Fund and piloted a holistic model of support, covering flights, accommodation, visa application costs and a daily stipend. The travel Fund supported 126 participants from 62 countries, helping them expand their networks, showcase their work with a global audience, and contribute to a stronger, more inclusive digital rights community. We also supported 13 participants from 9 countries through our Connectivity Fund.
“RightsCon was a transformative experience in my personal life, and especially in my career. I know that without the travel support, I wouldn’t have been able to attend. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly hope this wasn’t my first and only RightsCon. I look forward to the chance to attend this year’s event — to learn even more, contribute, and strengthen a struggle that isn’t mine alone. It’s a collective one, and RightsCon nourishes the soul in that regard.”
A community of multiple voices
RightsCon continues to work on bringing together communities and ensuring their equitable participation. To support this, we’ve developed initiatives over the years, such as a “no manel” (all-men panel) policy in sessions, and a Program Committee which represents diverse perspectives, genders, and regions. While we know that ensuring inclusivity requires continuous work, we’re here to share the progress we’ve made over the past years.
Gender
This year, RightsCon matched its Costa Rica record, with 57% of participants identifying as women, the sixth consecutive edition where women made up the majority of participants. We also welcomed 4% of participants who identified as non-binary, bigender, agender, or genderfluid.
57.32%
Women
34.31%
Men
8,3%
Non-binary, agender, bigender, genderfluid, and others
Participant background
The mission of RightsCon is to bring together people from all walks of life, from civil society actors on the frontlines to government officials, academics, and private sector leaders, united by a shared commitment to advance and defend digital rights. In 2025, civil society remained the most represented sector, accounting for 56% of participants (a 6% increase from 2023), followed by academia at 11%.
56.1%
Civil Society
11.0%
Academia
7.5%
Other
7.4%
Private Sector
5.4%
Media
4.9%
Government
3.3%
Philanthropic sector
2.4%
Creative
3.1%
Intergovernmental institutions
On the multi-stakeholder model:
Since RightsCon’s inception in 2011, our goal has been to create a space for open and inclusive discussions on digital rights across a wide range of sectors. This model allows for diverse voices to connect, collaborate, and candidly engage on the critical issues shaping our digital future. We’ve heard your feedback and concerns about tensions within the model and the need to rethink its sustainability, including evaluating how all stakeholders contribute meaningfully to the community. Our commitment is to ensure RightsCon remains responsive to your needs, and we plan to consult more deeply with our community as we reflect on and refine our multi-stakeholder approach to convening.
On media:
Media has long been a part of RightsCon, and for 2025, we set out to create a more robust and supportive experience for journalists and media professionals. For the first time, we introduced a dedicated Media Lounge, designed as a space to write, record, and work, along with a specific badge and lanyard to support access and visibility. This year, 116 registered media representatives covered the summit, including outlets such as The New York Times, WIRED, Tech Policy Press, Al Jazeera, TaiwanPlus, and others. As we look ahead to 2026, we’re committed to refining our media strategy and building on this year’s progress.
Looking ahead
Following RightsCon Costa Rica in 2023, we identified several areas for improvement, from our visa processes, more flexible programming spaces, to our community support model. We turned to our community for guidance, hosting a series of consultation calls that helped shape the planning and design of RightsCon 2025.
As we reflect on this year’s summit, we’re deeply grateful not only to serve our community but to co-create RightsCon with you. As the community grows and evolves, so too will RightsCon, guided by your insights, needs, and goals.
Stay tuned for the second part of our Outcomes Report, in which we’ll share our community’s achievements, our learnings from our first summit in East Asia, and how we envision the road ahead for RightsCon 2026 in Africa and beyond.
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