Grantee Project
The Egyptian Museum of Digital Rights initiative aims to engage digital activists, bloggers and digital liberties advocates in Egypt to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web. The Internet has been instrumental throughout Egypt and the Middle East for hundreds of thousands of citizens working to affect social, political and economic change, and has led to increased public awareness of and interest in democracy, freedom and human rights. However, Egypt’s nearly 39 million Internet users face barriers to accessing an open and free Web, such as high Internet access tests, slow broadband speeds, poor infrastructure, a lack of privacy safeguards for Internet users, and the monopoly of Internet service providers in the country.
The Life Association is working to create a cooperative open debate on the issues of digital rights in Egypt and to raise public awareness of freedom of movement and digital activity through the creation of the Digital Museum of Digital Rights website. The website will be a platform in Arabic and English for the exchange of technical tools and expertise, and will support the launch of blogging campaigns and other online events that will be used to increase interest across the Egyptian population. Issues discussed in this space will include the history and future of the Internet and digital freedoms in Egypt and around the world, and youth and digital freedoms, digital security and the development of tools for digital expression. The website will also offer a space for solidarity with detainees of digital expression in Egypt and will be used to share success stories of digital campaigns. From July 11 to August 30, events will be held across social networking websites for blogging and participatory planning, strengthening the role of Internet users in promoting participatory democracy. In August, Life Association will visit six universities and six youth clubs in Egypt to distribute t-shirts with slogans about Internet freedom and the website URL.
Contact: Eslam Sabbah eslam.sabbahi@gmail.com ( Executive Director of Life association )
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