Date: May 5, 2026
Location: Lusaka, Zambia
Participation: Requires a RightsCon 2026 ticket

Program

(The program is being updated. More updates will follow.)

9:00 – Opening; House rules

9:20 – Opening speech “One Shutdown After Another: A Brave New World” – Dmitri Vitaliev, CTO of eQualitie

9:40 – Keynote speech “When Repression Meets Resistance: A Decade of Fighting Internet Shutdowns Globally” – Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn Global Campaign Manager at Access Now

10:00 – Panel discussion: “Infrastructural Colonialism: Foreign Vendors Building African Splinternet“

• “Russian Big Tech: Building and Exporting a “Sovereign Internet” to Africa” – Alena Epifanova, Research Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin
• “When the Splinternet Arrives: What Digital Sovereignty Means for Africa’s Election Integrity” – Mable Amuron, Researcher – Tech and Society at Thraets Foundation, Kampala, Uganda
• “Digital Infrastructure in Africa: A New White Elephant Embodying US–China Competition” – Charlotte Escorne, PhD Candidate, IFG Lab, Paris 8 University (Recorded / Remote)

11:00 – Coffee break

11:10 – Fireside Chat “The Sky Is the Border: Control and Connectivity in the Age of Humanitarian Multi-Crisis.” Moderated by J. Alex Dalessio, Executive Director of eQualitie

• “Direct-to-Cell as Humanitarian Infrastructure: From Advocacy to Compact” – Mahsa Alimardani, Associate Director of Technology Threats and Opportunities program at WITNESS, London, United Kingdom

11:40 – Keynote Speech

12:10 – Lunch break

12:50 – Panel discussion: “The Splinternet as a Hybrid Warfare: Accountability in Times of Shutdowns.” Moderated by Patryk Pawlak, Project Director for the Global Initiative on the Future of the Internet (GIFI)

• “From Outage to Accountability: Building Evidence with Limited Data” – Nils Berglund, project lead for the Global Initiative on the Future of the Internet (GIFI)
• “Rethinking Digital Sovereignty Beyond Internet Outages” – Daouda Diagne, Director of the Computech Institute, Dakar, Senegal

13:30 – Short break

13:35 – Showcases of resilient technologies; demonstrations and Q&A. Moderated by Dmitri Vitaliev, CTO of eQualitie

• “Disruptive Free/Open-Source Technologies to Unleash Internet Freedoms” – Providence Baraka, Founder and Program Associate at the Bingwa Civic Tech Lab, DRC
• “DUTA: Engineering Information Resilience in the Era of Internet Shutdowns” – Hammer, Founder and Director, Project Ainita, Sweden
• “Avoiding Censorship: How Deflect Uses Geneva AI to Make Censored Websites Reachable Without a VPN” – Jeremy, Deflect Lead at eQualitie, Canada

14:55 – Closing remarks.

RSVP

SplinterCon Lusaka is open to all registered RightsCon participants. Planning to join us? Let us know – your response helps us shape our promotion and create a better experience.