---
tags: FtO, RightsCon, g0v-intl
---
# FtO session at RightsCon 2025

## Info
### 5 Years Facing the Ocean: Advancing Rights to Information, Gender Equality, Youth Engagement in East-Asia

- Time (tentative): Tuesday Feb 25

### RightsCon 2025

- Feb 25-27 2025
- Taipei International Convention Center (TICC)

## Todo list for speakers and facilitator

- [ ] Plan travel + hotel early
- [ ] @mami - I live in Osaka/Tokyo and will go from KIX or HND
- [ ] @eunsoo
- [ ] @klou
- [ ] @nao
- [x] @chihao - I live in Taipei :)
- [x] Update session info ==must before Oct 13==
- [x] Confirm speakers
- [x] Nao (Confirmed!)
- [x] Klou (Confirmed!)
- [x] Add collaborators
- [x] Update session title & description
- [x] Add personal info to proposal
- [x] @mami
- [x] @eunsoo
- [x] @klou
- [x] @nao
- [x] @chihao
- [x] Confirm preferred session date
- [x] Make collab slides
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Xv52LtF6xaQ-a12Ma_1L8GipqVfL1gMace6J6WAkZQo/edit#slide=id.p
- [x] Speakers must also register & get ticket
- https://www.rightscon.org/registration/
- early bird ends ==Dec 3==
- chihao has the discount codes
> There are 4 discount codes: 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%-off, 1 ticket each [name=chihao]
- [x] @mami -25% - 24534RC25
- [x] @eunsoo -50% or 75 - 24534RC50
- [x] @klou -50% or 75 - 24534RC75
- [x] @nao -100% - 24534RC100
- [x] @chihao

## Timeline

- Jun 7: Proposal submitted
- Aug 27: Session accepted
- Oct: Program building, consistent communications with RightsCon team
- Early Dec: Program schedule & room assignment

## Session Format

- 60-min in-person dialogue
- Everyone must be on-site
- Introduce FtO (10 min)
- 3 x 10min presentations
- Information accessibility / integrity
- Gender issue related projects
- Student collaboration
- Panel (10 min) - predefined questions
- how to continue FtO / future of FtO
- Q&A (10 min)

## Suggestions

- Civil society
- More a gathering, workshop, less presentation, conference
- More co-learning
- Keys
- the FtO "connection"
- spend much time with each other so now we can talk about serious topics
- infrastructure
- student exchanges
- Highlight FtO projects

## Updated Proposal
> first draft finished 2024.10.4
> pending review

### Title:

5 Years Facing the Ocean: Advancing Rights to Information, Gender Equality, Youth Engagement in East-Asia (15 words)

### Description

Since 2019, participants and members of civic hacking communities in Japan (Code for Japan), Korea (Code for Korea), and Taiwan (g0v.tw) have been organizing the Facing the Ocean (FtO) regional network. Presenters from each community will share the inception of the network, its organizational scheme, as well as key moments and projects using tech and collaboration to address communinal, national, and regional issues.

This session will present how it connects civic tech projects in East Asia advancing rights on information accessibility and integrity, gender equality, and youth engagement, working against government suppression, authoritarian interference, and (physical) cultural divides in our region.

Examples include an anti-extradition law portal (2019), COVID-19 dashboards (2020-2021), community fact-checking (2019-now), AI-assisted open parliament websites (2023-now), women and LGBTQ rights tracker (since 2019), and joint student engagement inspiring the next generation of the civic hacking movement (2023-now).

Presenters will then share preliminary cross-country comparisons among Japan, Korea, and Taiwan based on Facing the Ocean project outcomes and community feedback.

Slido will be used to collect questions and feedback during sharing. A facilitated open discussion will follow. A shared document will be used throughout the session to create meeting notes and formulate future collaboration.

## Original Proposal

### Title: 5 Years Facing the Ocean: Connecting Information Accessibility and Integrity Efforts in East Asia

> author: chihao
> proposal 24543
> submitted June 7 2024

> notes
> - anti-extradition law info
> - COVID-19 info
> - community fact-checking
> - data-driven projects countering misinformation
> - open parliament
>

### Description

Since 2019, participants and members of civic hacking communities in Taiwan (g0v.tw), Japan (Code for Japan), and Korea (Code for Korea) have been organizing the Facing the Ocean regional network. Three presenters will share the inception of the network, its organizational scheme, as well as key moments and projects using tech and collaboration to address communinal, national, and regional issues.

This session will focus on the issue of information accessbility and integrity. Presenters will highlight such projects and efforts connected by the Facing the Ocean network, working against government suppression, authoritarian interference, and (physical) cultural divides in East Asia.

Examples include an anti-extradition law portal (2019), COVID-19 dashboards (2020-2021), community fact-checking (and its dissolution in Korea), data-driven projects countering misinformation (2023), and AI-assisted open parliament (2023).

Presenters will then share a preliminary country comparison of information accessibility and integrity among East Asian countries based on an open dataset of the aforementioned projects, other related efforts, and recent developments in the region.

Slido will be used to collect questions and feedback during sharing. An facilitated open discussion will follow. A shared document will be used throughout the session to create meeting notes and formulate future collaboration.

### What do you want to learn from participants?

- Other regional effort to connect civic tech-er / hackers
- Other East Asian / Southeast Asian civil-society led effort addressing information accessibility and integrity
- Best practices in conducting country comparisons

### How will participants collaborate after session?

- Join online workspace (via Slack) of g0v.tw, Code for Japan, Code for Korea
- Participate in projects, hackathons, meetups of Facing the Ocean, g0v.tw, Code for Japan, Code for Korea
- Contribute to the dataset of information accessibility and integrity projects in East Asia and Southeast Asia

### Speakers

- Eunsoo Lee, Code for Korea
- Mami Takesada, Code for Japan
- Chihhao Yu, g0v.tw