January 6, 2017 – Haifa: 7amleh- Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, based in Haifa, is launching their first Palestine Digital Activism Forum, which will take place on January 19, at the Palestine Red Crescent Society Hotel in Al-Bireh

January 6, 2017 – Haifa: 7amleh- Arab Center for Social Media Advancement, based in Haifa, is launching their first Palestine Digital Activism Forum, which will take place on January 19, at the Palestine Red Crescent Society Hotel in Al-Bireh.

The Forum aims to provide a platform to discuss the challenges facing digital activism for the Palestinian civil society and their international counterparts. It also brings efforts together to conclude solutions, exchange lessons learned  to develop digital activism, advance digital security, as well as to unveil the results of the poll 7amleh conducted on digital security in Palestine.   This Forum will be held for one full day, and will include panel discussions, workshops, and policy related Q&As with both Facebook and Google/YouTube.

Simon Milner, who is Director of Policy at Facebook for the UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa will participate in person, while the Google/YouTube representative will participate via video conference.   The first panel discussion will cover the topic of the protection of digital rights in Palestine and the role of civil society in this, and will include the following speakers; Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Nadim Nashif, Director and Co-Founder of 7amleh, Wafa Ben-Hassine from Access Now, a representative of Privacy International, and Jillian York, Director of International Freedom of Expression at Electronic Frontier Foundation.     

In addition,  under the title "Inspiring and Innovative Usages of Digital Tools ", various exciting applications and digital campaigns will be presented by a number of speakers; Cecilie Mathiasen, Advocacy and Policy Coordinator at AIDA, Abed Tamish, Director of Underground, Saed Karzoun, Founder and CEO at Taghyeer, Ziad Abu Dalu from Palestinian Vision, and Basel Sader, the developer of "Azmeh app". During this panel discussion, the speakers will share their inspiring experiences using digital tools as means of change.  

To conclude the day, and to leave the participants with some practical tools, five workshops will take place simultaneously in the afternoon. The topics of these workshops are Digital Security, Crowdfunding, Video Advocacy, Visualising Information for Social Media, Developing Campaign Strategy: Design Thinking Process, and Social Media Management for Nonprofits. These workshops will be led by representatives of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Build Palestine, Witness, 7iber- Jordan, RNW Media and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  

It is worth mentioning that it is necessary to register on 7amleh’s website to participate in the conference, and that registration will close on January 10.   7amleh is a professional Palestinian social media center, dedicated to improving the skills and capacities of Palestinian civil society in this field, and advocating for their rights within it.