Preparedness is Power: How to Achieve Impact When Speaking Out in Tech

June 06, 2022
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WIN and The Signals Network is delighted to be co-hosting a panel at RightsCon this year - the world’s leading conference on human rights in the digital age. The 11th edition of Rightscon recognises the importance of whistleblowers in holding power to account.

When: Monday 6 June, 15:45 (ET) | 20:35 (BST)
Where: Online. Register here 


Preparedness is Power: How to Achieve Impact When Speaking Out in Tech

This panel discusses and demystifies how tech workers can create meaningful impact by speaking out. Big Tech companies are not only defining how we communicate, work, and learn now, they are also defining a future in their own image. It’s a future with more data collection, connectivity, amplification, automation, and risk of increasing inequality. In a world with slow regulation and massive corporate power, the single most important action we can take, as Dr. Timnit Gebru puts it, “is we need to increase worker power… That’s the only way we can have checks and balances.” One of the best ways to increase worker power is to ensure workers, of all levels, can speak out about harms and wrongdoing. Workers who speak out can protect the public, but it is a scary, uncertain act.

The Tech Worker Handbook was created to support tech workers who are considering speaking out about wrongdoing at their companies. The panelists in this event contributed to the handbook’s development and their backgrounds span a diverse range of perspectives, all dedicated to maximizing the impact of and protection for tech workers who speak out. 

Panelists will discuss how tech workers can build a team to achieve impact from their disclosures. This will be followed by a discussion with the audience where attendees will both share their own stories of impact and also ask panelists questions about their experiences. Overall, this will be a learning opportunity for all involved, and attendees will come away with more knowledge they can use to hold companies accountable and stay safe when doing so.

Panelists

Moderated by WIN's Executive Director, Anna Myers.

Erika Cheung - Theranos Whistleblower and Executive Director of Ethics in Entrepreneurship

Billy Perrigo -  Journalist, Staff Writer at TIME Magazine 

Delphine Halgand-Mishra - Executive Director of The Signals Network 

Mary Inman - International Whistleblowing Lawyer 
 

If you would like to highlight your whistleblowing events or activities on the WIN website, please drop us a line on info@whistleblowingnetwork.org