An illustration of a large computer keyboard with four small, stylized people standing on it. Each person holds a different colored square sign, suggesting they are changing or influencing the keys. The background is a solid light blue.

Illustration by Sebastien Thibault

People-Powered Solutions: Connecting Local Communities and Global Challenges

Champions of Fair Labor: Ensuring Worker Rights and Economic Justice

Guardians of the Public Square: Protecting Civic Engagement

Climate Justice Cultivators: Strengthening Community Land and Resource Rights

Global South Architects: Rethinking Sovereign Debt and Global Finance

Public Interest Innovators: Advocating for the Public Good in Global Tech

Defenders of Dignity: Building a Safe and Gender Just Future for All

Public Interest Innovators: Advocating for the Public Good in Global Tech

As technology reshapes global culture, politics, and economics, many communities—especially from the Global South—remain excluded from their development, benefits, and governance, while also being impacted by their harms. An equitable and ethical digital future will only be possible when we expand tech power from a consolidated model to a shared one, foreground the public interest in design and deployment, and center voices who can protect those experiencing persistent discrimination and harassment online.

Around the world, visionary leaders are creating collaborative systems that amplify these voices while challenging harmful surveillance, harassment, and disinformation practices. Emphasizing people-centered frameworks, we must support leaders and civil society organizations that are advancing public interest technology and ensuring digital governance advances transparency, privacy, and free expression for all people.

A group of agricultural workers stands together around a wooden trailer filled with harvested fruit in an orchard. They pose along a muddy farm track under a blue sky, illustrating economic governance and labor rights topics.
Portrait of farmer workers on agricultural field. Getty.

ADC: How Economic Governance Can Safeguard Civil Rights in the Age of Big Tech

From fighting inflation data secrecy in 2007 to tackling exploitation of agricultural data today, the Argentine Association for Civil Rights proves that digital rights and economic governance are inseparable from fundamental civil liberties and democratic agency across the Global South.

A diverse group of people sits around a large conference table in an office, engaged in a meeting. Laptops, notebooks, and coffee mugs are on the table. A banner with Korean writing is in the background.

International Justice Clinic, UCI Law: Protecting Digital Rights and Furthering Accountability Worldwide

The International Justice Clinic at UC Irvine School of Law works to protect human rights in a digital world. They counter surveillance and algorithmic censorship by using international human rights law to hold powerful actors accountable.

Person setting up wireless antenna on roof in an indigenous community in Brazil.

Ford Foundation Launches First Global South Network to Strengthen the Digital Resilience of Civil Society

Ford’s Digital Resilience Network supports Global South social justice organizations in leveraging the benefits of technology while minimizing its harms.

Flat vector illustration created from paper cut elements, hand drawn doodles and textures depicting concept of a thin line between privacy and security.

Spyware Accountability Initiative, With Seed Funding From Apple and Leading Philanthropies, Announces Over $4 Million in Grants to Address the Harms of Spyware on Civil Society

Tech companies and leading philanthropies, including Ford, partner to support civil society organizations in mitigating the harms of state-sponsored mercenary spyware, especially in the Global South.

“I really want an institute where there are people distributed around the world who don’t have to leave their communities but are embedded in their own communities impacting the trajectory of AI development. I think that is really a counterpoint of the centralization of power that we are currently seeing.”

– Dr. Timnit Gebru

Video duration: 26 minutes and 46 seconds
Timnit Gebru has dark curly hair in an afro, wearing a gray top and a light-colored scarf around her neck. To her left appears the text: On what matters with Timnit Gebru.

Making AI Systems More Just With Hilary Pennington and Dr. Timnit Gebru

Dr. Timnit Gebru, founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, shares her belief that, with careful deployment that includes diverse perspectives, AI can be beneficial to all people.

Video duration: 11 minutes and 47 seconds
Hilary Pennington has short hair with blond highlights and is wearing a yellow top with green scarf and sitting on an orange chair. Mariana Valente has a short bleached blond hair, is wearing a white polkadot top and standing outside in front of a stone wall with bushes in the background..

Technology and Gender: Hilary Pennington With Mariana Valente

InternetLab director Mariana Valente discusses how the internet has the potential to advance gender equality when it is guided by fundamental human rights.

A close-up shot of a person's hands typing on a laptop keyboard. The lighting is low, highlighting the hands and the keys, with a warm-toned sleeve visible in the background.

Opinion: The Internet Was Once a Tool for Justice. It Can Be Again

Technology once held the promise to empower social movements and further justice— but we must reclaim it from the forces that now use it for misinformation, surveillance, and exclusion.

A collage or organizers, tech workers and surveillance equipment with orange shapes against a sand grain background.

How Digital Resilience Advances Safety and Equality in the Global South

Organizations across the Global South are uniting to protect journalists, human rights defenders, and nonprofit leaders from digital harms, including surveillance, censorship, harassment, and disinformation.

Themes

An illustration shows a large, dark blue hand from the upper right, with its index finger pressing down on a small group of three people. The background is a solid, vibrant orange-red color.

Champions of Fair Labor: Ensuring Worker Rights and Economic Justice

An illustration shows two hands cupped together, protecting a diverse group of people. The group includes a person in a wheelchair and children. Colorful, vine-like patterns swirl around them on a teal background.

Guardians of the Public Square: Protecting Civic Engagement

An illustration of a large hourglass. The top half contains a green-leafed world map, from which a tree trunk extends to the bottom. Small people are gathered around the base of the tree. The background is blue.

Climate Justice Cultivators: Strengthening Community Land and Resource Rights

An illustration shows a diverse group of people seated around a table shaped like a winding road. The road leads toward a setting sun over a hill, all on a green world map.

Global South Architects: Rethinking Sovereign Debt and Global Finance

An illustration of a large computer keyboard with four small, stylized people standing on it. Each person holds a different colored square sign, suggesting they are changing or influencing the keys. The background is a solid light blue.

Public Interest Innovators: Advocating for the Public Good in Global Tech

An illustration of three small people pushing against the tightening screw of a large red C-clamp. The background is a solid orange. The people are working together to resist the pressure of the clamp.

Defenders of Dignity: Building a Safe and Gender Just Future for All

Illustrations by Sebastien Thibault