News

Now out: Read our 2023 Impact Report

The Engine Room

2023 was a year in which we provided targeted strategic support for a record 85 partners, published 3 research reports, piloted a successful cohort learning programme, established new ways of working and created new organisational structures that set up our work for 2024 and into the future.

News

Leadership changes at The Engine Room

The Engine Room Board
Julia Keseru

Our ED, Julia Keseru, will be leaving The Engine Room at the end of this year. Read her letter, as well as a letter from our board.

News, We're Hiring

[Closed] Join our team! Senior Research Associate

Marwa Abayed
Laura Guzman

*Application window has now closed Technology is changing a lot about how our world works, including the ways in which civil society can hold power to account, build collaborations and mobilise data to push for social justice. At The Engine Room, we work with civil society partners – from big humanitarian organisations to small activist […]

News, Support

Are you working at the intersection of health and social justice?   

Hlompho Mokoena

Are you a civil society organisation or collective working within or with the health sector? Are you thinking about ways to collect, manage and store data more efficiently and securely? Are you looking to strengthen your organisation’s capacity around responsible data practices? Please read on, our Light Touch Support programme might be a great fit […]

Event, New Project, News

[CLOSED] Applications are open! Learn how to bring a responsible data approach to your work with our cohort-learning programme

Joshua Sehoole
Paola Mosso

The amount of data available about almost anything is growing, but if it’s not collected, processed and used in thoughtful and critical ways, the data increases risk of harm – especially to marginalised communities. Today we are launching a pilot of our new cohort learning programme: a collaborative course aimed to equip social justice leaders […]

Learnings & Reflections, News

The work ahead & extending our strategy

Laura Guzman
Paola Mosso

Nearing the end of what was the original end-date of our strategy, we’ve made the decision to extend it for another year, to the end of 2023. More than ever, we need to continue building this strong, resilient and well-networked movement of social justice activists.

News, Support

Meet our new Matchbox partners

Hlompho Mokoena

We are thrilled to announce two new Matchbox partners for the upcoming cycle: Albinism Umbrella and Y-Fem Namibia. Read more about these two organisations below! 

News, Support

Supporting organisations to navigate digital transitions

Barbara Paes

With support from Sigrid Rausing Trust, we are deepening our support to organisations who are going through digital transformation. We’re inviting organisations, collectives and movements facing challenges incorporating technologies in their work to reach out to us for light touch support (LiTS)!

News

Revamping our intensive tech & data support

Joshua Sehoole

From 2022, we’ll be running our Matchbox programme a little differently. After months of research and reflection, we have decided to make our Light Touch Support programme (LiTS) the primary way through which we select Matchbox partnerships.

Event, News

Meet us at RightsCon 2021

Barbara Paes

RightsCon starts next week! Join us in one of our sessions to talk about the links between social justice and digital rights, data practices for civil society, gender-responsive tech design and more.

News

Extending our support in solidarity with Colombian civil society

Paola Mosso

In the past days, Colombia has seen a rapid increase of pushback against civil society, as people took to the streets to protest against tax reforms proposed by the current government.  In response to the violent repression of the current social mobilisations in the country, we are offering dedicated light-touch support to activists, organisations and […]

News

Curating connections in the Responsible Data Community

Barbara Paes

Last year we piloted an initiative called Community Connections at the Responsible Data mailing list, where we connected members of the community based on shared interests in responsible data(RD)-related topics, allowing them to chat about topics and projects related to responsible data. Learn how you can join the next round.

News

Coaching, knowledge exchange and support: the future of Matchbox

Hlompho Mokoena

Seven years of Matchbox partnerships have given us many insights on what kinds of organisations we can best partner with, and how. We have rooted our approach to organisational support in the pursuit for justice, equality and equity. Our new strategy re-affirms this commitment and provides the foundation upon which we can further elaborate what our in-depth support will look like in the coming years.

News

Where we’re headed – proudly presenting The Engine Room’s new strategy!

Julia Keseru

This is the first in a series of posts exploring our mission, vision, principles and priorities for the coming years. To read about the ways we’re trying to get where we’re going–how we’re implementing our new strategy–take a look at this post from Zara, our Deputy Director. A lot has happened since 2017, when we […]

News

Meet us (virtually) at RightsCon 2020

Laura Guzman

Though it will look quite different this year, we are still very much looking forward to exchanging knowledge, experiences and solidarity at RightsCon this year. We’re keen to talk about justice, responsible data, ethical decision-making, advocacy, the potentials (and pitfalls) of new technologies and even more that we might not even know about yet! Take […]

News

Co-creating community guidelines with the Responsible Data community

Paola Verhaert

This year, the Responsible Data community turns five. Over these past years, community members have found each other in offline and online spaces to share ideas, questions and resources around the responsible use of technology and data in their work.  We are proud to be part of this active community that continues to grow, drawing […]

News

Zooming in on learning with our Latin American partners

Paola Mosso

Lee este post en español. In Latin America–as we see elsewhere–the individuals, groups and organisations that make up civil society are faced with limited time and resources to carry out their work and reflect on their learning. Many operate in challenging and ever-changing contexts that often move away from transparency, accountability and democracy due to […]

News

Are you re-using digital tools?

Sacha Robehmed

At the Engine Room, one of our core goals is to support civil society to reduce digital waste. In the past, we’ve looked at how transparency and accountability initiatives in South Africa and Kenya selected digital tools, and we found that more than half built new tools from scratch. In many cases, these tools were […]

News, Support

Seeking support in using tech for Legal empowerment?

Lesedi Bewlay

Earlier this year, we released research on how legal empowerment organisations are using tech and data in their work. Inspired by that research, we’re excited to offer pro-bono, actionable and tailored support – through our Light Touch Support (LiTS) support programme – to legal empowerment organisations or activists who are interested in working more with […]

Event, News

Meet us at RightsCon!

Laura Guzman

Will you be in Tunis for RightsCon 2019? We’d love to say hello! Here’s a quick run-down on who is going to be there from our team and some conversation starters should you want to reach out. Paola M will be on the lookout for organisational security practitioners and community members who might be interested […]

News

Supporting the orgsec community with Internews

Paola Mosso

Earlier this year, we kicked off a project dedicated to understanding how the organisational security community is growing and what ways there are to support that growth, partnering with Internews. Through this project, we hope to highlight findings that are especially valuable for at-risk organisations and to contribute to knowledge around impact measurement in this […]

News, Research

Digital ID: What we’ve been up to and where we’re headed

Sara Baker

Last September, we started working on a research project looking at the effects of digital identification on local communities. We’ve been in touch with many people, organisations and institutions who are thinking about digital identification systems in different ways, and we’ve developed some exciting research methods. We’re excited to share a bit of what we’ve […]

News, Support

Lightweight support, big picture learning

Lesedi Bewlay

At The Engine Room, there are many different ways we strive to support our partners – our intensive Matchbox partnerships are year-long, dedicated collaborations, and our research work can take many shapes from helping build an organisation’s responsible data guidelines to conducting targeted field scans. Our Light Touch Support (LiTS) work, though ‘lighter’ in duration […]

News

Using the GDPR in the fight for rights & social justice

Laura Guzman

Over the past year, data protection legislation has had a significant impact on the work of civil society, especially with the advent of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This impact is often seen as a negative one, and the stories we most often see revolve around this negativity, too. However, we know that […]

News, Research

Investigating Digital Tool Re-Use Among UK Organisations

Sacha Robehmed

We’re excited to share that over the next year, we’ll be carrying out a new research initiative looking at how UK charities* re-use existing digital tools for service delivery. We’ll be working as part of a wider project, Digital Sparks, to support UK charities with digital service delivery. Our partners include: CAST, Dot Everyone, Cassie […]

Event, News

Meet us at IFF 2019!

Paola Verhaert

Will you be at the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia next week? Say hi to Paola Mosso, Paola Verhaert and Madeleine Maxwell, who will all be attending the event! We are looking forward to learning about the work our peers are doing on organisational security and internet freedom, and we’re excited to meet many of […]

Event, News

Meet us at TICTeC 2019!

Nonso Jideofor

Will you be at TICTeC 2019 next week? The Engine Room’s Sacha and Nonso will be! We are looking forward to attending sessions like: Users first: revolutionising a mobile app for the city, The quest for an internet that serves us and Inclusive Governance: Bringing all voices on board for the design and delivery of […]

News, Research

Can beneficial ownership transparency really be compatible with data protection?

Tom Walker

This blog post was co-written by Zosia Sztykowski, Project Lead, OpenOwnership and Tom Walker, Research Manager, The Engine Room. It originally appeared on the Open Government Partnership stories blog. In recent years, we’ve seen significant progress on clamping down on the abuse of anonymous company ownership through beneficial ownership transparency, both from international bodies like […]

News

Announcing our new Executive Director, Julia Keseru!

The Engine Room Board

Following an extensive and thorough search, we are thrilled to announce that Julia Keseru is the new Executive Director of The Engine Room. Julia has been an instrumental part of The Engine Room’s team for years – first leading the global Matchbox program, later as Deputy Director, and twice as the organisation’s acting Executive Director. […]

News

Are you our next Executive Director?

Anneke Victorica

Our Executive Director recently announced that she will be leaving her post. Recruiting for a role like this will be a first for us, but we’re up for the challenge. If you are savvy and thoughtful about the role of tech and data in social change, are passionate about strong, positive organisational culture, and love the dynamic complexity of running a remote, global organisation, then this might be the job for you.

News

How we are redesigning responsibledata.io

Maya Richman

As you might have heard by now, we are redesigning responsibledata.io, the website for the responsible data community! The redesign is funded by Stanford’s Philanthropy and Civil Society team, who brought together the Good Data Collaborative – including SIMLab, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Future of Privacy Forum – to identify gaps […]

News

Responsible data considerations for open source investigation in human rights

Paola Verhaert

In advance of the Responsible Data Forum on Open Source Investigation for Human Rights, to be held in partnership with Meedan at the Stockholm Internet Forum on Tuesday, May 16, we compiled a list of resources that can help human rights researchers respond to responsible data challenges when using open source data. 

News, We're Hiring

New Position: Director of Transmission @ The Engine Room

Anneke Victorica

We’re hiring a Head of Product at The Engine Room! Find out more and apply below. Background The Engine Room supports social change organisations and change agents to use data and technology to increase their impact. We do this through a variety of support formats. All of our work has two goals: increase the capacity of social change […]

News

Meet Our Two New Board Directors: Elizabeth Lindsey and Ivan Sigal

Alix Dunn

As an organisation, The Engine Room makes a lot of choices. Some of them big: Who will we accept funding from, how will we grow smartly? Some of them small: should we go to this event or that event, what colour should the background of that website be? When you add up all of these […]

News

Announcing a webinar on Responsible Data policies: Weds 19th April

Zara Rahman

Join The Engine Room and Oxfam for a webinar on Wednesday 19th April at 9am EST/2pm GMT to hear about how their Responsible Data policy has been put into practice. If you’re also working on a responsible data policy and/or have experience in this topic and want to share it during the webinar, let us know!

News, We're Hiring

Excited about social change in Sub-Saharan Africa? We’re recruiting for a new regional lead for our Transparency & Accountability Team

Julia Keseru

  Note: The application deadline for this role has now passed and we will no longer be accepting applications. The Engine Room supports social change organisations to make the most of data and technology to increase their impact. We’re looking for someone to join the Transparency & Accountability Team and lead our programmatic work in […]