Exploring the Nexus between Technologies and Human Rights 34 • To have more movement building and collaborations at the regional level. This would bring multiple benefits, such as knowledge transfer and capacity sharing, and soliciting support from the international community when individual countries are facing crises. It was also mentioned that governments within the region learn from each other in terms of authoritarian measures, and so digital rights advocates should form networks to collaborate. While there are some individuals within the Southeast Asian region with the knowledge and experience in participating in Internet governance forums, this knowhow needs to be mainstreamed within the movement for effective policy change. • To increase the involvement of the tech community within the digital rights movement. The gap between the digital rights movement and the tech community needs to be bridged, as the expertise from the tech community is much needed to provide the movement with the knowledge of the technicalities of digital rights, technical support upon cyber attacks, and tools to facilitate some digital rights work, such as apps to combat fake news, or to maintain connectivity when mobile signals are jammed during demonstrations. For this to happen, there has to be more outreach to the tech community to sensitise them for human rights, and to entice them to contribute their skills into the area. The case of Taiwan was given as an example of active involvement of hacktivists in its digital rights movement, who have the combination of the technical skills and understanding of social issues. • To increase the technical capacity within the digital rights movement. For some digital rights issues, especially technical topics such as data security on various technologies, technical experts are needed to analyse the societal implications of technology. At the moment, even though there are organisations doing some work in this area, the lack of technical expertise is a major gap within the region to propose or oppose policy directions. The digital rights movement needs tech professionals for more policy research, advocacy and recommendations, as well as to conduct more workshops and capacity building within civil society. Organisations should hire their own technical personnel, which would then be a basis of putting together a collective of technical professionals within civil society. Another suggestion was for civil society organisations to organise themselves into a membership organisation or cooperative which offers support for technical needs. • To improve access to funding. Funding structures need to be diversified to include core or operational funding. Regional or bigger organisations can work on obtaining big grants and subsequently breaking it down to sub-grants to channel funding to local partners. Funders should also work on simplifying reporting, and understand that some aspects of digital rights work, such as building digital literacy, are long term efforts which may not have immediate impacts that can be measured. The reality on the ground is that many Southeast Asian digital rights activists do not register their organisations because of overly burdensome requirements, hence, barring them from receiving funding – an aspect that should also be considered by funders.