Hanan Elmasu: I'm so happy to welcome you all today into all of our living rooms across the world to talk about a program that is very dear to my heart, the Ford and Mozilla Tech and Society Fellowship program. My name is Hanan Elmasu, and I'm the director of the Mozilla Foundation Fellowships and Awards program, and I'll be your co host for this conversation alongside someone I suspect many of you already know Alberto Cerda Silva, who's the program officer at Ford's Tech and Society program. And together with our four panelists today, we're going to take you on a little journey of this unique partnership to place technology strategist and civil society organizations across different parts of the world.

Hanan: The Tech and Society program was launched in 2019 with really one overarching aim, and that's to break down the barriers between technology and the social justice issues that we all care so deeply for. And it was really a recognition that the two no longer really live apart if we want to truly confront inequality, data and technology has become such an integral part in strengthening the work of civil society, but have also become a part of the infrastructure that reinforces inequality. And our program, is really geared towards integrating and approach technology that allows organizations to harness its power while at the same time incorporate strategies to address its potential harms. And despite delays in launching the program in the middle of a pandemic, a challenge, I'm sure all of you have come up against one way or another.

Hanan: We began in September last year, partnering technologists and civil society organizations for a period of two years in Kenya, Lebanon, Jordan, India, Brazil and Mexico. And while we're still in the first six months program, we've already learned a lot from the experiences of our fellows and our host organizations, and today is really just an opportunity to share some of those experiences with you. Joining us on the panel are a combination of tech and society fellows and representatives of host organizations from Brazil, Mexico, Kenya and Lebanon, and I'm going to invite each of them to introduce themselves and speak a little bit about their work. But before I do that, I wanted to just let you know that we're recording this session, after which will add captions in Spanish and Portuguese, which will share with all of you once it's complete.

Hanan: The structure of the discussion is we'll kick off with the first half hour discussion with our Panelists and then give you an opportunity to ask questions. So feel free to post questions in the chat throughout the meeting. Alberto will be your host through the Q and A session, so I'll pass off to him after we have our initial discussion. And if our technology works properly, will switch to a full panel view so we can all see each other. So if you don't want to show your face on the recording, please do switch off your video. That's it for me. I'm going to pass it on to Brian to kick off our introductions. So, Brian, if you can let us know who you are, where you're based in with which organization and give us a little glimpse into the work you're doing and if you can just tag the next person once you're done. Thanks.

Brian Obilo: Thank you very much Hanan. My name is Brian Obilo. I am based in Nairobi, Kenya, and I'm a Tech and Society Fellow who is very very committed to fostering the operational resilience of civil society organizations by advancing cybersecurity, capacity building and promoting cyber awareness and resilience approaches. So currently I'm embedded at Katiba Institute, where we are also currently exploring multiple opportunities to advance the rule of law by leveraging technology with the general aim of enhancing the safety and security of human rights defenders and everyday citizens. And before I joined Mozilla, I used to work as a cyber security engineer and digital security trainer at eKRAAL Innovation Hub right here in Nairobi. So I'm going to pass it over to the Tarcizio to introduce himself.

Tarcizio Silva: Thank you, Brian. Hi, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here to share a little about our work at the fellowship. My name is Tarcizio Silva. I'm a Tech and Society Fellow at Mozilla currently, I'm embedded in Ação Educativa its an organization that defends human rights here in Brazil, especially in São Paulo. For the last 12 years, I've been working in the media industry and in the advertising fields, but in the last couple or two years, I've been producing some knowledge and trying to connect with civil social organizations around algorithmic justice, especially around race and racism in Brazil. So in Ação Educativa, with the support of Mozilla of coures, we are going to connect all the experience of the host organization with the judicial rights organizations in Brazil, especially produce research project and content to support public school teachers and how they can discuss technology in their classrooms. I'm going to pass to Giovanna.

Giovanna Salazar: Thank you Tarcizio. Hi, everyone. My name is Giovanna Salazar and I am currently the communications coordinator of Mexican feminist organization that goes by the name of EQUIS: Justicia para las Mujeres and this translates as EQUIS: Justice for Women and we are devoted to transform institutions, public policies and women's leadership to improve access to justice for all women. I guess because of my background in new media and digital culture, and also because I have worked in the digital rights realm, I was particularly excited that we at EQUIS were given this amazing opportunity to host a fellow from Ford and Mozilla's Second Society program, and our fellow right now is currently building a new social network designed to foster meaningful conversations online through books and movies, and we saw this as a great opportunity to foster visibility, knowledge and engagement with several different audiences on women's rights. So I'm really happy to be here and to share my experience with you all. I'll pass it on to Jessica.

Jessica Chemali: Hi, everyone. It's also a pleasure to be here with you today. So my name is Jessica Chemali. I'm in Lebanon, embedded with legal agenda, of which I'm also the deputy director. But today I'm here in my capacity as a Tech and Society Fellow. Legal Agenda is an organization headquartered in Lebanon and working in the MENA region, by monitoring law and its social implications as journalists and the communities, to promote social change. So we monitor the parliament, we monitor the judiciary as well as the government and conduct strategic litigation. And my fellowship is about leveraging data science interaction in order to make all the complex laws and the relationship to the communities more accessible to those communities so that they can use it in public debates, so that the law can really be a pillar and how public debate happens in in these countries. Thank you, Jessica. And if Jessica has to turn off for a video, don't take it personally. It's just that she lives in Lebanon that has its own challenges around electricity and Internet. So thank you all for that. Um, I have a first question that I think everyone here wants to hear the answer to, um and I'm going to pose it first. To Giovanna is one of our host organizations.

Hanan: Thank you, Jessica. And if Jessica has to turn off her video, don't take it personally it's just that she lives in Lebanon that has its own challenges around electricity and Internet. So thank you all for that.

Hanan: I have a first question that I think everyone here wants to hear the answer to, um and I'm going to pose it first. To Giovanna is one of our host organizations. And Giovanna I think it would be really interesting to hear speaking from your experience so far, hosting a fellow why does intersecting technology and social justice work makes sense to you?

Giovanna: Yeah, well, I guess we have to take into account some, um, the context right now that we are living not only in Mexico, but also in several countries of Latin America and even worldwide, where the closure of civic spaces and political polarization is on the rise as well as mis and disinformation. So we had cookies believe that innovative responses that may allow NGOs to continue their work and thrive, despite growing pressures is urgently needed. So in this regard, technologists definitely play a huge role in tackling such issues, and we with our fellow and kind of, like, innovating with this new social media platform aim to actually address, like, fostering meaningful conversations and get away from the polarization.

Giovanna: And also, we do believe that civic technology and digital tools most definitely have the potential to contribute to cultural change and the defense of human rights. I mean, we've all seen that they enable people to document abuse to make their voices heard to protect and defend the rights, among several other amazing things. So, taking into consideration these two key aspects, we had realized that we needed to up skill our technical capacity, especially now that technology is so prevalent. And also amid the covid 19 pandemic, that kind of like forced us to to explore and thrive within the digital realm and yeah, take this opportunity, like, right hands, right.

Hanan: Yeah. So I think that probably speaks to quite a few different organizations at this point in time. Um, Brian, you come from a very different background as a cybersecurity engineer. How would you answer that question?

Brian: Yeah, I think first I speak as a technologist, and I think as a technologist. It's very, very important for us to understand not only the social implications but also the policy ramifications of our work, and so far I've only been a fellow for quite a while. But it has opened my eyes in various ways because I truly realized that technology is definitely not politically neutral, and most people may have this as a truth. But it's definitely not a fact. And there's always that element of duality when it comes to technology. In that, every tool that potentially can do good can also can also do bad and vice versa.

Brian: Like, for example, there's a... I can build a cyber security tool meant to help in penetration testing. But hackers may misuse this tool to attack the civic space in another way. So as techies one thing I've learned is that everything we do has a moral dimension to it, if that makes any sense, and we need to sort of accept it and engage with it, it's not something that we can run from anymore.

Brian: And by working with Social Justice, we have more exposure and awareness because they act as the mirror to society, and they constantly remind us of this duality of technology. And on the other hand, over the past few years, we have seen a remarkable increase of technology, technological adoption and Internet usage globally. And when we speak of, for example, the CSO context, most of them have been forced to sort of rethink or even develop new strategies to sort of adjust this paradigm shift when it comes to technology. And this is very important because they have to do this in order to be able to effectively address societal issues as they converge with the digital world. So I think it's very, very important as technologsts to come in and give that capacity building to see a source like this to ensure that the work is relevant and the work is relevant in the long term. So that's that's what I have to say.

Hanan: Tarcizio, I saw you nodding your head a lot.

Tarcizio: Yeah, I think the things that Brian said about the idea of a neutral technology, it's something that I really need to address here in my project and in the in the Brazil discussion around that because I agree that technology is embedded in everything we do nowadays and can be a catalyst for human rights but also can be a catalyst for harms, for societal harms or the promotion of inequality. So as a society, we think we need to engage fully with technology in several layers from using technology as a tool to critically understand how to maintain or how to question inequalities. So to me, the most important thing about technology and social justice, is how to promote the possibility of different social technical imaginaries. Or how can we think about different futures that with technology, you use it as a thing for the common good?

Tarcizio: So this means, in my view, that technology can be open, affordable and appropriated in a way to work for this common good. And even in some cases, technology can be refused. For example, in the case o surveillance technologies here in Brazil, for example, a lot of governments are using facial recognition in a very harmful way without the participation of the civil society. So in Brazil, technology and racism remains taboo. We don't discuss technology or racial justice in a way to include everyone. So in my project, we are trying to talk about some issues around how racial justice is connected with technology, and this means to discuss how technology is not neutral and how the institutional in structural racism in Brazil works. So when we will be able to discuss these two areas and connect, we can think of a better future where technology, helps racial justice instead of the opposite.

Hanan: Jessica, I'll ask you your opinion as well, but maybe before that I'd just be interested to hear from Brian and Tarcizio if you always held that view or did something change to make you feel that way?

Brian: I think as a technologist, I never held that view, or if I did, it was very very dormant. And it's because when I started my career started as a software engineer, then transitioned into cybersecurity, and I'll give one practical example from from my own context. I used to sort of publish multiple tools that are maybe meant to carry out some aspects of cyber security such as, say, penetration testing and what not. And before joining the fellowship, I really, really didn't think much about content I had published online or how, who or how possibly my tools could be used.

Brian: And when I came into this context of trying to ensure long term cyber security resilience for CSOs and looking at how open source tools published by cybersecurity researchers like myself help perpetuate some of these problems that we are trying to... We're trying to stop now it just opened my eyes in that there's that element of duality when it comes to when it comes to technology, and you may mean well, when you're trying to do something, but your tool can potentially be used to harm others. So it was sort of like an eye opening revelation that I experienced and I also went on to clean all the tools I had published as well.

Hanan: Thanks for that.

Brian: And Tarcizio what about you?

Tarcizio: Yeah, I've had some similar experience in a way that for some years I've only saw the positive impact of technology because I was raised in a very poor community, and I've use it technology, the Internet and social media to build a career that my parents and relatives didn't have the opportunity to have and to have a graduate course and postgraduate course and alike, and even true entrepreneur in the field of technology and social media research. But during the last decades we saw that this is a I don't know the expression it's a knife of two sides because we have a lot of opportunities in individual sense, but when we look at the collective ways that technology impacts the global scope, we have a lot of challenges and one of the challenge is how technology can be used for promoting inequality and promoting racism. So my change in my career happened in 2018, because the current way that Brazilian population and politics is getting more conservative and extremist. So I'm trying to use those skills that I've accumulated in the work of related fields and in the academic field to make a difference in the civil society organizations.

Hanan: Thanks Tarcizio. Jessica, You come at it from a slightly different background, don't you?

Jessica: Yes. Actually, initially I came from a technology background when I was doing my PhD in machine learning. And for me, the eureka moment was then related to the risks of technology because I started discovering all the predictive power of combining data with computational power and then taking decisions based on that, for example, I remember I an academic paper I had read. And I'm sure now they are much more advanced and much more present. The ability to predict someone's gender, sexual preferences, ethnicity, income, etcetera just from social media likes, for example. And how so potentially banks could use this in like all sorts of decision making platforms in the private or public administrations can use this and for me, actually this is what led me not to work in the commercial sector in old case.

Jessica: So in a turn of events, I was going in a academic research career. I switched and I couldn't see myself working in a commercial sector so I turned into the advocacy sector, far from technology. And it's the fellowship actually, that's allowing me again to bridge back my technical background with data and the advocacy and related to the question for me I don't even approve of the word intersection because intersection assumes that technology covers one area, social justice covers another, and then they intersect somewhere. For me, technology is not just technology or a new method for doing something faster or perform better. Technology is every everywhere. It covers all the space, all decision making space, just like social justice issues cover all the space and allow for this, like, fight discrimination.

Jessica: And I'd like to give an a illustration that comes to mind. It's as if So when When when cars were invented and you would want to promote so that someone uses a donkey, then, okay, it's a new tool. You go faster. But then even cars transformed how we build our cities and anyone familiar with urban activism knows how much the current shape of cities have affected urban rights, social cohesion, etcetera, and the impact on environment and the impact on the power structure. Now technology is this times 1000 because it's ubiquitous, it's disruptive of all sectors, again finance labor with the automated labor for, for example, technology, technological advances allowing to dismiss workers and having robots, health is disrupted. I think it's transforming the concept of privacy because we'll never have privacy as we used to have, even with all the cybersecurity and all the policies. Now, with all this abundance of data out there and the predictive power of data, even if I don't know what you're doing, I can predict almost accurately. And this is actually for example, people notice that Oh, why is Facebook proposing a friend? How did they know that we met? They might not have known, but they might have predicted just that. It's actually there are articles about this I'd like to continue on and on with this the rise of AI in in public administration, for example, I think in Mexico, maybe a municipality wanted to use machine learning to distribute aid to poor families in a better way.

Hanan: But actually, how is it... how do you render an algorithm accountable? Now we are handing public and private decision making to machines and the data that they have and this data is biased and it embeds already habits and power structures. Even further new questions related to democracy and accountability. And I can refer just to the polemic around the erasure of Facebook and Twitter of Trump's accounts. So the power of private companies today and what it means about democracy and elections. So for me, the first answer to your question is really the that you cannot avoid engaging with technology because it's transforming social justice. It's a concept and how they are reflected. And my secondary question now because it's a secondary answer, which is an old the answer to this, that, of course, technology allows us to address things in a better... in a different way in an efficient way. Today, there are new questions we can... old questions we can answer that we couldn't before just because all this data is available because smartphones are everywhere, etcetera. So for me, this is an obvious reason, but to to use technology and become equipped because for me, those who don't will will be left behind very, very strongly. In a nutshell.

Hanan: Thanks. No, that's fine. That's so much to think about right? It's like your brain goes in so many different directions. And thank you for calling out the use of the word intersection. I think that is a really poignant example that you gave around cars and infrastructure. And I think that, you know, it's so fascinating to hear people's journey to this moment, right? And it really is a journey. It is something that is a realization. It's an aha moment, and I think part of the goals of what we're all trying to do everybody on this call is trying to make that more of a reality. And, I don't know, I think it would be really interesting to hear what you think would help other organizations. For example, let's just talk about organizations. Never mind the whole universe of human beings. But organizations that are working within this space, how they can start to think about this journey.

Jessica: Me as Jessica?

Hanan: Go for it Jessica well, we still have your video link, right?

Jessica: Sure. So for me a fellowship let's be specific about perhaps the fellowship experience. I think it would be the most transformative experience because it allows for a process to happen. And I think all of us fellows have shared together that one of our difficulties is actually communicating with our hosts, even myself I'm the Deputy Executive Director of Legal Agenda. But when I stepped in the shoes of a fellow, I started seeing a gap between how I talk about technology and what the receiving end understands or how they engage with me. So, I think that in addition to the general advice to just be more familiar with how technology is transforming the sector of interest of the person. And and there's a lot of data about this, uh, social, economic and sectorial data about this, I think just engage more with technology and with data activists so that you start becoming more familiar. For me it needs to be a transformative experience to be at the level needed so that really the organization engages. And the kind of ways it can and and for me it's other than... like it has several transformative aspects to it including how the impact of the organization is conceived and how the operations happen as well.

Hanan: Yeah, thanks for that. Tarcizio what is your learning from this experience?

Tarcizio: Yeah, I had the opportunity to accumulate some learnings, maybe some, some of them, because I came from a for profit field. But they are being very impactful for me. I think the first one it's the way that the host organization connects research, advocacy and education in a way to gather data and information about the fields, about communities and even about themselves. This connects with the cycles learning. It's about the needs of thinking about racial justice not only as a goal goal outside the organization, but also inside the organization. I had the excellent opportunity to be embedded in a host organization that it's a reference in racial justice inside the organization, and they are doing some surveys and mapping of how water civil society organizations in Brazil are connecting their goals with racial justice goals inside and outside in a very honest and critical way.

Tarcizio: And finally, I think this also connect with the other learning about the role, the position of some stakeholders in the education field, for example, public school teachers and public educators and communities like outskirts, favelas from the cities. And the idea of learning and listening and working with public school educators is being very helpful for me because there is a lot of misinformation about technology and about racism and about democracy that the public school teachers can better understand how this information flow between young people. So they are very important stakeholder that some civil society organizations doesn't look to them. So if I was to highlight learning, it was that the importance of listening and work with public school educators.

Hanan: That's great, thank you Tarcizio. Giovanna I'd be interested to hear what from a perspective of an organization what that means to you.

Giovanna: I mean, we have to recognize that harnessing new strategies and tactics is always a challenge, and the technological kind of like learning curve is steep and can be quite challenging for an organization to just like, yeah, pass that learning curve. So I guess if I have some advice, it would be for the organizations to keep a mind open like an open mind. And in our case, having a team that is actually, for the most part, quite young and enthusiastic helped a lot. So we kind of, like, organized several conversations and workshops while working remotely because of the pandemic, which also was a challenge in itself but conversations and workshops with our Fellow. So she could actually know EQUIS as a whole like our organization as a whole. And this proved to be very successful because our Fellow, I think that could actually find ways in which her contributions could permeate all areas and work strategies of the organizations. And that's how we actually came into having this type of ah ha moments.

Giovanna: For example, like now that you were talking about, the data exploitation model that social networks mainly have and the surveillance capitalism and etcetera, like we actually from these conversations with our fellow because she is designing a new social platform like I told you about, we we came about the importance of even kind of like designing and implementing together with her content moderation principles. Principles from a feminist perspective. So that was kind of like an aha moment, very surprising. And it kind of like was possible because we kept an open mind and we kind of, like got passed by the learning curve that the technology itself kind of like pulses for organizations. But also, we worked as a whole, like she wasn't... She was not only working with us as the communications area, but in fact, with the directive, the management team, and also the programmatic and administrative areas, so that was kind of like, really a successful practice, I might say, yeah.

Hanan: Thanks. I have so many more questions, but I'm just conscious of time. So I'm gonna let Brian share any words of wisdom with us before we switch to questions.

Brian: Yeah, uh, in my end, I think, we have well experienced, almost similar problems. And for me, I think I got my ah ha moment when first we sort of realized that technology is essentially not here to change or overhaul what the host organization is really really good at, but it's essentially here to augment what they already do so well. And the second aha moment was that, really the host organization don't really need to understand technology in depth, but they need to know how to ask the right questions, and they need to understand how they can learn from the subsequent answers. In essence, you really don't need to understand everything to make the most of it. And, for example, when conducting a basic swot analysis, it's basically trying to compare, like quarter strength now. And how can it be improved in the future? And how can we get there with the help of of technology? And that's how we came to, you know, identify outputs such as a civic engagement platform that could allow them to sort of improve, improve how they relate with the citizens and and stuff like that. So I think learning how to ask the right questions is very very key and learning how to to learn from the subsequent answers that you get from our technologists as well.

Hanan: That's such a nice frame that speaks to them, speaking different languages and answers and questions. I could ask a million more questions, as you were saying about asking the right questions, but I'm going to pass on to my fabulous co host, Alberto, who is going to lead our question and answer period. I think...

Hanan: Thank you so much for that. It was just kind of a taster of some of the some of the some of the interesting moments that have happened in the last six months with the team here. I know Alberto and I have lots of questions that we can populate for the next half hours or the next 20 minutes, but want to give you an opportunity to, if you do have a question, you didn't put it in the chat just to raise your hand and and unmute yourself if you like to and maybe we can switch to a full participants view so we can all see each other. And, if you don't have any immediate questions, I know Alberto probably has some more.

Alberto Cerda Silva: I do have, I do have tons of questions. But I see that we already have some questions from from the colleagues that are attending the conversation. So I will start with one question from the colleagues from the central pro in Mexico Jose. He's asking us: How do we bring technology closer to the most vulnerable people? To those that need it the most? How do we do that without even having in some instances Internet access? I would love it if we can start Probably transition if you are probably because of the role that you have at Ação Educativa you're in very good position to answer this question. But if anybody else from the fellows or or the hosting organizations have some suggestions, please just raise your hand. Tarcizio the floor is yours.

Tarcizio: Sure, that is something that I've been learning with some teachers that I've been talking to. It's very related to that. A lot of public school teachers from high school levels that are interested in teach about how to think critically about technology has this challenge a lot of of their students don't have access to Internet in the homes or in their communities or even in their schools. So they are trying to think about how to improve the access, obviously advocating for Internet access in the community, the schools, but also how to understand how to talk with people, especially students in this case about the impact of technology, how this technology can be even something that is not only digital because technology is something that is connected with skills, for example, that is a very interesting experience: One of my interviews say to me, it's a teacher called Vagna Modeira and he has the opportunity to talk about technology with some students, and they asked to the students how they see technology in the first phase. And most of the students just said, Oh, my, I don't use a lot of technology because I don't have access to a smartphone or I don't have my own personal computer but he tried to show should then into discuss with them how technology is around us in other ways, for example, the skills of professionals like wood workers that work with wood and they accumulate knowledge about something about some procedure. And this is a type of technology from the point of view of their students. So they are using a lot of advocacy for surpassing the digital divides and trying to understand technology before even the digital sense. Because there are some learnings that we can bring for other types of technologies through the digital arena.

Alberto: Thank you Tarcizio. Giovanna allow to me to put you in the spot a little bit, thinking on the increasing critical voices that from the feminist movement but also from the racial justice movement in Mexico are coming to the attention about the need to overcome unfair distribution of technology and for engagement with technology and lack of faxes, and lack of opportunities to shape the technological environment. How do you see that technology can breach with those that are usually marginalized in the Mexican context?

Giovanna: I mean, bridging the digital divide is kind of like a really a prevalent challenge, especially like in in rural contexts. And also in context that are not urban. Right? So I think that I mean, that's kind of like a million dollar question in terms of how how do we make... guarantee that more people have access to technology? But as as Tarcizio was saying like, I think that it is important to point out to the fact that technology is all around us, and it's not only based in access to internet or access to technology as we think about it in terms of connectivity, right? And yeah, I guess I really don't have kind of like an answer to how to to make it more accessible. But I guess that also kind of, like, moving away from the mindset of technology being only based in connectivity and something that is kind of like in that realm is important to bridge. Yeah. Thank you. You wanna Jessica? There is a question in the chat that precisely about the level of integration of technology with social justice. Uh, and the question is how What will be your recommendation regarding achieving, uh, this change in mind on people's in people's mind, uh, to engage with technology. And it will not if you and maybe later. Also, Brian can elaborate a little bit hard. You have achieved that in your organizations.

Alberto: Thank you Giovanna. Jessica there is a question in the chat precisely about the level of integration of technology with social justice and the question is how... What will be your recommendation regarding achieving this change in mind on people's... in people's mind to engage with technology. And it will not if you and maybe later. Also, Brian can elaborate a little bit how you have achieved that in your organizations.

Jessica: Sorry. I was on mute. So for me, I'm actually coming initially from a technology background. People didn't see, like, people I talked to didn't see technology, but as a positive thing, like, I think Brian mentioned as something that's very empowering, etcetera. I think there are for me, the... here the collaboration between the multidisciplinary collaboration between social scientist, economist, political science, journalists and fostering discussions, multidisciplinary discussions where you try to find a common language between those disciplines and others. Other activists, etcetera, I think is key.

Jessica: I'm seeing these kinds of kind of conferences or collaboration start, so for me, they need to multiply these kinds collaborations. And I think here the NGO sector can be more proactive in trying to bring those different disciplines together, like technologist with other. Because what I'm trying to say, in the technology sector there was no awareness before about the ethical part of technology. Now we're saying that many technologies starting to be aware and even, this consideration being embedded in purely technology conferences, but also the organization of multidisciplinary conferences and collaborations are starting and should be amplified. Definitely as well encouraging mainstream media reporting on things related to that, as far as my current organization Legal Agenda is concerned, I think very few members of the organizations see technology in that way.

Jessica: But, for example, it took one article I wrote on public... on E government in Lebanon. To... And I had a reaction from the executive director and from other members of Legal Agenda who actually it exposes such deep problems of public administration when we come talk about technology. One example of this is that the idea that when you would have e- government and IDs for everyone in Lebanon, automatically you have the count of people living in Lebanon. And our last census was in 1932 because we have demographic issues, violence and conflict, so we don't actually want to know how many people live in Lebanon and etcetera. So technology exposes certain decisions, for example, so I think it's inevitable that people will start seeing how impactful it is. But the idea how to build our capacity to engage with this power with this difference in power is what needs a lot of collaboration.

Alberto: Thank you, Jessica. Brian, in the process of landing in Katiba Institute, you went through the process of meeting their minds, meeting your minds and their minds to come together with a plan. A concrete plan for working during the following two years, and I'm assuming that this created a lot of changes in terms of communications. How do you overcome those challenges? How do you achieve that meeting of minds?

Brian: Yeah, I think, as I mentioned before, when I was speaking about the initial Aha moment, it was us having that conversation and realizing. So I'll give a very practical example like Katiba has... Katiba Institute has 3 main focus areas in public interest litigation, research and community outreach. And while you are having these conversations about how we could potentially use our technology for community outreach, for example, the people I was speaking to who carry... who do community outreach was sort of feeling like a technology is going to d most of their work. And they may not have those opportunities to keep on doing what they're best at, or essentially change how they conduct their current operations. But then it's... we sort of got that. I sort of had to explain that technology is not meant to overhaul the system itself, but it's only meant to sort of layer layer into the system and augment what you already do. So it's sort of like meant to streamline operations, not change it and become something totally different. And when you approach it in that way, it makes them less... It makes them...

Brian: It makes it harder for you to reject technology or the technological solutions that could be potentially adopted because then it doesn't feel so foreign. It just makes them feel like okay, nothing major is going to change. We're just bringing in a new aspect of embedding technology into some of our strategies and whatnot. So I think that was the main key. And then I realized as well that during the Gap Analysis stage, I was quite narrow minded in a sense, and initially when I was conducting a swot analysis of how they use technology, I only conducted a swot analysis of how they use technology, and this was very very narrow minded because the analysis was so narrow. So I had to take a step back and come in again after realizing that I don't have much to work with and conducted a second swot analysis on the focus areas, specifically public interest litigation, research and community outreach to effectively identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the focus areas specifically and then see how every aspect, every focus area can be improved with technology. So it's after doing that I believe we made so much progress. And that's when we started figuring out some of the outputs and some of the work we're going to be doing for the next two years.

Alberto: Oh, thank you for for saying that, Brian. You said so something how you achieved that and you realize to going from the solution of a specific problem to have a much more strategic and compressive perspective on how to use technology and how to check technology in the world that you develop a Katiba institute. Before going to the question that Alex has in the chat, let me allow you to to mention that, yes, we are talking about how social justice meet technology and the challenges that it creates. What you should know is that although the fellows have been in the hosting organizations for barely four or five months, all of them already have come with specific plans to work over the course of the following two years, and that has supposed an intensive dialogue between the Mozilla on one side, the hosting organizations and the fellows. So the meeting of the minds has taken place in most of organizations already, and they are talking the same language, as Brian said after realizing what is the strategic role of technology in organizations. Having said that, probably building on the top of his own plan Tarcizio, would you mind to to answer a question of Alex, how do you harness hope to keep on standing against powerful and hostile actors? And I will appreciate if you Giovanna can also answer that question after Tarcizio.

Tarcizio: Okay, I think I can connect with something that Jessica said about multidisciplinary view of the issue. When we get a lot of disciplines together and a lot of different ways to talk about racial justice and technology, we can try to see a lot of opportunities to promote this qualitative ideal of standing up to the power around technology. Because besides advocacy and education, there are the focus of the host organization. There are a lot of disciplines that can be together with us and professionals and activists from other areas from law, from art from journalism. And I try to...

Tarcizio: Some of the projects some of the activities in the projects are going to try to connect with other disciplines. And me individually. I also tried together some inspiration from other fields, like journalists or art or even law. So probably I think this is a good way to engage more people because we are showing a lot of possibilities to support this collective idea. So it can be supporting independent journalism major also supporting advocacy campaign also supporting a workshop. And there are several ways of doing that. And multidisciplinary, is the focus, in my opinion.

Alberto: Thank you Tarcizio. Giovanna do you have something to add on regarding to how do you cope and to harvest here?

Giovanna: Yeah. I mean, it's it's difficult, but yeah, I think that definitely multidisciplinarian kind of like perspectives always help because it kind of like makes you realize that you can address the challenges that you are facing in several different ways. And I guess in our case at EQUIS we always kind of like, prioritize working collectively and working kind of like with other NGOs, especially local NGOs that have their first hands on experience of working with communities and with people in vulnerable situations. So working collectively, building networks, prioritizing, multidisciplinarian. And also kind of like, yeah, be inspired like Tarcizio said by your peers by your also kind of like even a small, kind of like victories that you can point out to is also important. It's kind of like being acknowledged that the fact that your work has impact and yeah, I guess that would be what I have to say.

Alberto: Thank you Giovanna before giving the word to Jessica, who wants to add a few words on this subject. If you have additional questions, raise your hand or right down them in the chat box so we can go over them after Jessica's intervention here. Jessica, please.

Jessica: Yes. So, actually, I like this question. Speaks a lot to me. I connect with it because personally, when I first discover the risks of technology and gathering data and where I felt myself threatened, having a technology background, I decided, actually to pull out for years and feeling that it's a lost battle and that it's going to happen. The idea of privacy, data collection, etcetera and discrimination. And it's maybe a couple of years ago that I had change of mindset where... and thanks to, I have to say, organizations like Mozilla and Electronic Frontiers who are actually using technology to solve as well technology's problems. So I think there's a lot of hope because technology is a new space with its new politics and we're trying... And many disciplines, including technology itself, is striking to find threats to formulate problems in ways that are solvable. And we're having new laws like the GDPR for example, that's already a few years old, that are starting to regulate. We're having new awareness about the really the disruption that happened. A few years ago you would only hear about how Facebook is great because it's connecting everyone. Today the risk of it holding this power in public debate is recognized. The monopoly of big companies is recognized. And I think, like everything else in our long history, there are new battles to fight, and I think the people who can fight them are being, like, have a lot of avenues.

Jessica: And really, I think it's really not in your face but I think Ford Mozilla partnership is actually one of those catalyzers where we will and not in the face of Brian be asking the right questions and in order to overcome and to be in that battlefield and promote the hope. And I think a few years ago I wouldn't have said the same thing. But today I think that is a lot of hope because we can. When you are able to pinpoint problems in a constructive way, then you can solve it with creativity, with innovation. I have no doubt that we have it. That's it.

Alberto: Thank you very much, Jessica. I hope Alex that that answers your question. Is there any other question? Just for the records we have 10 fellows currently working in 10 organizations based in six different countries. Each of them already have developed specific plans to work over the course of the following two years in incorporating technology in the feminist movement, in the journalist section, in the educational sector and alike and in other mini sectors.

Alberto: Please feel free to touch base with us. If you want to have a deeper conversation about how their works and how the organizations are looking into the effect of technology in social justice, we will be happy to facilitate those conversations.

Hanan: And just to add to that, many of our fellows will will be speaking at MozFest, which is the Mozilla Festival that's happening starting on the eighth of March and running for two weeks. So if you want to learn more, I want to engage with others around these topics because it's a lot to take in, please do join us. I know there's somebody has a link somewhere else, and they can send it there, but we'll we'll email out more details with the video. And also maybe it suggests some really inspiring sessions that you could follow up on. And I really love that we ended on hope. Thank you so much. It was really, really fantastic discussion. Thank you all for joining us.