Tech Talk: The Passionate People of RightsCon

CDT’s Tech Talk is a podcast where we dish on tech and Internet policy, while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. You can find Tech Talk on SoundCloud,  iTunes, and Google Play.

We took Tech Talk on the road to Brussels for RightsCon, which is an incredible annual gathering on the future of the global internet. While there, we had the chance to meet and talk to digital rights advocates, civil society leaders, government officials, technologists, and all around visionary people. In this episode, we bring these perspectives to you.

MEP Marietje Schaake

First you’ll hear from Marietje Schaake, a Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands. She outlines the key tech policy issues she is working on and shares her thoughts on where the EU can take a leadership role. She is definitely one of the most tech-informed politicians I have ever met.

Then we welcome Wafa Ben-Hassine and Javier Pallero two of the regional leads from Access Now, the organization that hosts RightsCon. Wafa shares her perspective on digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa or MENA, and Javier addresses his work in Latin America.

And finally, we have some quick hits from the Executive Director of EDRi, Joe McNamee, the Executive Director of Derechos Digitales, Maria Paz Canales, Amos Toh from the office of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Expression and Opinion, Daniel Bateyko, a Thomas J. Watson Fellow who is traveling the world to research global digital rights, and our very own Laura Blanco from CDT Europe based in Brussels.

Elizabeth doing the recording.

And I’d like to give a special thanks to Access Now for having us as guests and letting us bring the podcast to their big event.

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