We wanted to share an important update for RightsCon Silicon Valley 2016 (Wednesday March 30- Friday April 1, 2016). We received lots of requests for it, so we’re happy to announce that we have extended the program session submission deadline until Monday, December 14, 2015!

Confirmed Speaker Highlights (To Date)

• David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression

• Nicole Wong, Former US Deputy CTO, Legal Director for Products @Twitter, VP & Deputy GC for Google

• Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, and former Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign

• Bruce Schneier, Internationally renowned security technologist, cryptographer, privacy specialist, and author of 13 books

• Eileen Donahoe, Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

• Matthew Prince,  Co-Founder and CEO of CloudFlare, a website performance and security service that processes more than 5% of global web requests

• Judith Lichtenberg,  Executive Director at Global Network Initiative, previously Head of Regulatory Affairs & Digital Rights at Vodafone Netherlands

• Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab, renowned author (including Access Controlled), and founder of Psiphon, one of the world’s leading digital censorship circumvention services

• Stephen Lowe, Head of Business and Human Rights/Freedom of Expression Team, Human Rights and Democracy Department, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

• Ejim Dike, Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network, and former Director of the Human Rights Project at the Urban Justice Center.

• Dan Bross, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Microsoft

• Joe Cannataci, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy

• Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

• Chris Riley, Head of Public Policy, Mozilla

• Paul Nemitz,  Director for Fundamental Rights and Union Citizenship, European Commission.

• Esra'a Al Shafei, Founder and director of Mideast Youth, a network of online platforms marginalized voices throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Bahrain

• Yasmin Green, Head of Research and Development for Google Ideas

• Jillian York, Director for International Freedom of Expression Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

• Barton Gellman, Journalist, bestselling author, and Pulitzer Prize-winner on the global surveillance disclosure

• Morgan Marquis-Boire,  Director of Security for First Look Media, contributing writer for The Intercept, and Senior Researcher and Technical Advisor at the Citizen Lab

• Walid Al-Saqaf, Board Trustee for the Internet Society (ISOC)

• Lisl Brunner, Facilitator for the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue at The Global Network Initiative

• Chinmayi Arun, Research Director of Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi

• Kenneth Carter, Counsel at CloudFlare, a website performance and security service that processes more than 5% of global web requests

• Rebecca MacKinnon, Author of Consent of the Networked, Co-founder of Ranking Digital Rights, GNI and Global Voices

• Esther Dyson, Entrepreneur, angel investor, and Principal of EDventure Holdings

• Ronaldo Lemos, founder of the Center for Technology & Society at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School Brazil

• Christian Dawson, Chairman and co-founder of the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition)

• Nicole Karlebach, Senior Legal Counsel, Business & Human Rights at Yahoo

• Kevin Bankston, Director of the Open Technology Institute (OTI) at New America

• Andrew Puddephat, Director, Global Partners and Associates

• Katie Shay, Legal Counsel, Business & Human Rights at Yahoo

• Brett Solomon, Executive Director and Co-founder, Access Now

• Elinor Buxton, ‎Senior Cyber Research Analyst at Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK Government

• Eve Chaurand, General Counsel, Change.org, an online petition tool with over 100 million users

• Wesley Diphoko, Founder of KayalabsOnline, an ICT4Development NGO based in South Africa

• Ben Rowswell, Canada’s Ambassador to Venezuela, former chargé d’affaires in Baghdad/ deputy head of mission in Kabul, Afghanistan

• Andrew McLaughlin, entrepreneur-in-residence at betaworks, former Deputy CTO at the White House, and former Director of Global Public Policy at Google.

• David Pashman, General Counsel at Meetup, co-chair of policy committee of NY Tech Meetup.

• Keith Winstein, Stanford Secure Internet of Things Project

• Jochai Ben-Avie, Senior Global Policy Manager at Mozilla, former Policy Director at Access Now