The RightsCon Costa Rica Call for Proposals is now open!

We’ve officially launched our Call for Proposals for RightsCon Costa Rica (June 9-12, 2020)! You have until January 14, 2020 to submit your session.

The RightsCon program is the guiding pillar of our annual summit. Our team works hard to curate a program that reflects the complexity of the issues we work on, and we take seriously our responsibility to convene cutting-edge thinkers and set in motion critical conversations at the intersection of technology and human rights.

Each year, we accept sessions from hundreds of leading technologists, industry leaders, human rights defenders, government representatives, academics, advocates, and journalists from around the world. Our Call for Proposals is open to everyone, because we want submissions that cut across stakeholder lines and issue areas.

Hosting a session at RightsCon is one of the best ways to showcase your work, connect with like-minded leaders, hone strategies, ask for advice, learn new skills, consult users, and build the momentum that fuels our work. Past sessions have led to some pretty incredible outcomes, and set the stage for ongoing collaboration and collective action.

RightsCon Costa Rica, our ninth global summit, will build on the success of RightsCon Tunis — our most ambitious program to date with over 450 unique sessions — and will offer a dynamic space for 3,000+ participants.

Ready to get started?

First things first, read our Guide to a Successful Proposal.

The guide has all the tools and information you need for submission success. We receive a lot of proposals (last year, there were more than 850 submissions!) and unfortunately, we can’t accept all of them. Whether you’re a RightsCon first-timer or a veteran, we highly recommend looking at the guide to make sure your proposal is as polished as possible.

Next, take note of a few important aspects of our program process.

• The official RightsCon Program Platform: Introduced last year, the platform will continue to serve as a centralized place to manage all aspects of your program experience. To propose a session, you’ll need to create an account on the platform. Good news for returning session organizers: you can use your login from RightsCon Tunis!
• Language diversity: To further our commitment to inclusion and representation of local communities, this year’s session proposal form offers optional sections where you can submit answers in both English and Spanish. This past year, we offered sessions in English, Arabic, and French at RightsCon Tunis, and we’re excited to continue these efforts in Costa Rica. Bear in mind that we welcome sessions hosted in other languages, but we can provide limited translation services outside of our main plenary sessions. If the proposal form is a barrier to sending in a session for consideration, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team individually, and we’ll work with you to facilitate your participation and involvement.
• Session excellence: We want every RightsCon session to be excellent. Excellence, for us, means that a session is thematically relevant, actionable, original, and diverse. In pursuit of that goal, our program process includes resources, trainings, and opportunities to connect with other session organizers.
• Selecting your speakers: We’re invested in producing a program that hosts a diversity of perspectives. Moderator and speaker selections are a major factor in our evaluation process. For that reason, we strongly suggest that you confirm the participants of your session before you submit your proposal.

This year, our program categories reflect established issues and new spaces for exploration:

• Alternative Models for Business and Labor
• Artificial intelligence, Automation, and the Algorithm
• Content Control and Censorship
• Cybersecurity Norms and Practice
• Data Governance, Protection, and Consent
• Democracy, Elections, and Political Participation
• Digital Inclusion and Diversity
• Environmental Sustainability and Human Resilience
• Freedom of the Media
• Futures, Fictions, and Creativity
• Global Governance, Justice, and Jurisdiction
• Network Connectivity and Internet Shutdowns
• Peace, Stabilization, and Conflict Prevention
• Philanthropy, Wellness, and Operational Development
• Privacy, Surveillance, and Individual Security
• Public Interest Tech and Human Rights-Centered Design
• The Global State of Civil Society
• Trade, Commerce, and the Digital Commons

Finally made it all the way here? Then you’re ready to start drafting.

Our Call for Proposal period is even longer this year, to give you extra time to put together a stellar proposal. Keep in mind that you can always save a draft of your proposal in the platform and come back to it later, once you’re ready to submit. Don’t forget to set a calendar alert: the submission deadline is January 14, 2020 at 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time.

Our expectations for RightsCon Costa Rica are high, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with. Program and event details are coming soon to our website. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter, the RightsCon Rundown, to stay up to date on all things RightsCon.