Since 2019 GNI has offered one-year fellowship opportunities to civil society organizations from around the world, leveraging fellows’ expertise. Several fellows have now become GNI members and developed interesting research on different digital rights issues. You can learn more about the fellows cohort of 2019 and 2020.

This year GNI’s Emerging Voices Fellowship received more than 350 applications and we are pleased to introduce the three fellows that will represent our priority regions: Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa.

  • Lisa Garcia represents the Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA), based in the Philippines. Established in 1987, FMA focuses on human rights issues as they relate to technology. Lisa is the executive director and leads projects on online freedom, data protection, privacy, and gender issues in the ICT sector.
  • Hamadou Tidiane Sy represents E-JICOM, based in Senegal. E-JICOM is a journalism school, founded by Tidiane a decade ago. The school is looking for resources to carry out activities to strengthen the media and digital lab. Tidiane is interested in researching laws that interfere with the privacy of citizens and press freedom.
  • Eliana Quiroz represents Fundación Internet Bolivia, based in Bolivia. Fundación Internet Bolivia works on data protection, democracy and digital participation, digital economy, and equity and digital divide. Currently, they are working with the legislative assembly to help them discuss municipal laws on personal data protection. Eliana is the director of research and is pursuing a Ph.D. on disinformation.

The fellowship pairs fellows’ unique experience with GNI spaces of engagement, including participation in GNI’s quarterly multistakholder board meetings and regular policy and learning activities. These interactions offer opportunities to enhance regional, on-the-ground collaboration between companies and CSOs in support of laws and policies promoting freedom of expression and privacy around the world. GNI will also support fellows’ research projects to be completed at the end of their fellowships.

About this Fellowship

This fellowship is possible thanks to the Sustaining Multistakeholder Networks for Internet Freedom (SuNI) project, which aims to protect and advance online freedom of expression and privacy by establishing and enhancing connections between civil society and ICT companies. Funded by the Bureau of Democracy, Labor, and Human Rights at the U.S. Department of State, the goal of the project is to improve civil society’s ability to advocate directly with large technology companies in order to improve those companies’ policies, as well as to foster greater coordination and collaboration between civil society and ICT companies on shared priorities. The current and previous iterations of the project, which were led in coordination with Internews, build upon GNI’s multistakeholder model and convening structures to foster collaborative advocacy between companies and civil society in support of laws and policies that protect and enhance freedom of expression and privacy.