Internet Freedom Festival Reinvented: Joining Forces to Fight Censorship and Surveillance
A community-run and community-led event turned one of the largest and most diverse gatherings on technology and human rights
Back in 2015, we designed the Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) as a response to the community’s demand for more inter-disciplinary, community-driven gatherings and improving the diversity and inclusivity within the digital rights and online freedom of expression communities.
Now, just 3 years later, all of you have taken it to the next level — adapted it, evolved, hacked it, and made it yours. With over 1200 registrations, 100+ countries and 300+ session hours so far, the upcoming Internet Freedom Festival is set to be the one of the largest and most diverse gatherings on human rights in the digital space.
Before we all come together again in Valencia, I wanted to share everything that we have created together with you throughout the past year, and are implementing for the first time in 2017.
Every new iteration of the Internet Freedom Festival is an evolution of the previous, built on your active contributions, feedback and needs. We are in beta mode, and we will always be.
New Image, Same Values
This year we are implementing the biggest image change since the inception of the Internet Freedom Festival, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Created by the talented designer Gonzalo Hergueta, who kindly donated part of his time to work with us, this fantastic new visual identity perfectly captures the personality of the Internet Freedom Festival. We’ll be rolling out the new identity very soon!
In the meantime, here’s an advance:
Old logo, thank you for your service! You’ll be missed:
Guiding Principles and Advisory Board
Although our image is changing, our commitment to our goals and values right has not. In case you’ve not yet seen, we recently added The 10 Guiding Principles of the Internet Freedom Festival to the website; we also assembled an all-star Advisory Board that will guide us setting the vision for the future of the festival.
More Program, More Activities, More Events
Introducing the Themes and the Internet Freedom Festival Fellows
This year, Internet Freedom Festival session content is organized into Themes, rather than tracks. The Themes are general areas of interest and practice from across our communities that provide a structure to the program. In 2017 we are adding two new Themes: Internet Freedom: Present and Future, to explore the current state of the Internet Freedom space, its overarching issues, the latest research findings, and the upcoming threats and opportunities; and Regions & Groups, to address those issues that make participation in the Internet Freedom space difficult for underrepresented groups, respectively.
The Themes are curated by the Internet Freedom Festival Fellows, an outstanding and diverse cohort of 27 professionals & community leaders, coming from 19 different regions. They have reviewed and selected the sessions of the Internet Freedom Festival Program, ensuring that diverse viewpoints and voices are well represented. We are overwhelmed and humbled by the record 500+ session submissions we received from everybody this year. Deciding the final program has been a tremendously difficult process, and we deeply appreciate the effort you put in sending all your sessions.
Redesigned Schedule and New Session Formats
With over 300 sessions hours throughout the week, the Internet Freedom Festival can sometimes be an overwhelming experience — but worry not! We have redesigned the daily schedule to include 15 minute breaks between sessions, and a full 1 hour and 15 minutes’ lunch break (Spanish style).
You will also find some new session formats throughout the program, such as off-site sessions, where you will be invited to attend a session in the open air, and also custom formats, where the host has the freedom to create their own experience that best fits the content of their session.
Help Desks and Additional Self-Organized Space
This year we will be substantially increasing the self-organized areas of the Internet Freedom Festival, with the addition of new, dedicated rooms for self-organized sessions and the introduction of Help Desks, which are designed to let you share a special skill, service or expertise with other participants. Sign up for self-organized sessions, in addition to some Help Desk slots, will be available first come, first served on-site at the Internet Freedom Festival.
Cultural Activities and Evening Events
How much do you know about the history of Valencia? Did you know that the Malvarrosa beach, with its calm waves, is perfect for learning how to paddle surf? Do you know how to cook a proper Valencian paella?
We heard your questions and curiosity, and we have designed a series of cultural activities for you to learn and explore the culture and traditions of hour host city. Stay tuned for sign up instructions. Limited availability!
And just in case you don’t have enough with the cultural activities during the day, we will also be hosting evening events throughout the week.
Side Events, Made by You
With its modular and multifaceted structure, the main goal of the Internet Freedom Festival is to ensure you have the space and tools to build your own fulfilling experience. Our goal is to support yours, and we have been working with many of you to accommodate a number of side events this year, including:
- 1st Vietnam Cyber Dialogue: this event will serve as a gathering of community leaders, activists, policy makers, and technologists working towards improving access to information and greater freedom of expression in Vietnam. Brought to you by Viet Tan, Article 19 and Reporters Without Borders;
- Tools Showcase: an interactive gathering, featuring tool/app builders & tech service providers demonstrating their projects for Internet Freedom Festival attendees, this event offers all participants the opportunity to interact directly with those developers working on the tools they use and rely upon most. The Tool Showcase is organized by Equalit.ie;
- International Women’s Day Celebration: a collaboratively-organized event to celebrate and connect efforts supporting women, gender awareness, and inclusion across the Internet Freedom space;
- Global South Meetup: an open, diverse, safe and fun space for those based in the Global South to talk about our similarities, our differences and think about how to work together in the Internet and human rights space;
- Localization Lab Space: a space, hosted by Localization Lab, that will provide opportunity for developers, translators and end-users to collaborate and translate tools they care about, or find out more about getting involved in ongoing localization efforts.
Diversity and Inclusion by Design
Diversity and Inclusion Fund
As a gathering built on an ethos of inclusivity and collaboration, it is critical that the Internet Freedom Festival emphasizes participation of underrepresented populations — including ethnic, gender, sexual, and religious minorities. Increasing this representation better equips the Internet Freedom Festival and the Internet Freedom community to tackle the persistent, complex, and frequently unaddressed access and inequality challenges.
For this purpose, this year we created the The Internet Freedom Festival Diversity and Inclusion Fund, dedicated to raising funds towards promoting diversity and inclusion within the Internet Freedom Festival’s participation and programming.
With the generous contributions of the Conselleria de Transparència, Responsabilitat Social, Participació i Cooperació, Unió de Periodistes Valencians, Ford Foundation, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla, International Media Support, Media Democracy Fund, and The ISC Project we’ve managed to support 62 professionals from 32 underrepresented regions so far.
Working with Inclusivity Professionals
Besides providing travel assistance to underrepresented groups, this year we are working with Valerie Aurora and Gabriela Rodriguez to improve the culture of the Internet Freedom Festival by bringing in best practices related to inclusivity and providing support to groups and individuals while at the Internet Freedom Festival. This includes crafting an updated Internet Freedom Festival Code of Conduct, providing mentorship to the Internet Freedom Festival Fellows on how to ensure their theme is more inclusive, and creating a trusted and positive space for collaboration.
All these improvements and new additions are the product of the work of many organizations and individuals around the world. The Internet Freedom Festival is a truly community-run and community-led gathering, and I want to express my gratitude towards all the amazing human beings that are an active part of it: participants, presenters, volunteers, fellows, supporters, partners, contributors and, last but not least, the Internet Freedom Festival team (thank you Sarah, Nick, Kim + Sandy).
Now, more than ever, the challenges we are facing require coordinated efforts and strategic collaboration.
I hope that the Internet Freedom Festival brings all of us one step closer to each other.
See you in Valencia,
Pepe Borrás, Internet Freedom Festival Director
