COMMUNITY BUILDING

Collaborations are interwoven into the fabric of our organization. Our community building efforts seek to bring together stakeholders from both the technology and human rights side of our work to break down silos and find collaborators across sectors.

In 2013, we started Iran Cyber Dialogue (ICD) as an annual event to facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and hold critical discussions on the latest issues facing civil society in Iran. Since then, ICD has become a platform and network of diverse stakeholders from technology companies, civil society groups, journalists, policy makers, members of the academia, activists and others coming together to advance civil society goals, digital and human rights in Iran.

Since 2020, ICD has been run by an organizing committee consisting of community members. We also moved from an annual event model to offering more opportunities for constructive knowledge sharing and long-term relationship-building through year-long online programs, fellowship, as well as capacity building and psychosocial support programs for the mental health and well-being of our communities.

The relationship and cross-pollination of ideas enabled by ICD activities have given birth to many novel solutions, including the creation of the ClaimReview Project, an Incident Response Working Group, and many joint projects that continue to make a difference across the globe today.