RDR Director Jessica Dheere. Photo by Dan Jones.
Changes are happening at RDR! Jessica Dheere, our current deputy director, will assume the role of director as of September 2020. Rebecca MacKinnon will stay on as founding director into 2021.
A former journalist and prominent advocate in the digital rights field since 2008, Dheere is the co-founder and former director of the Beirut-based organization SMEX, now the leading NGO in the Arab region working at the intersection of technology and human rights. As a 2018-19 fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Dheere also founded CYRILLA, a global database of laws pertaining to digital rights.
With Dheere moving into the role of director, MacKinnon will continue to work with RDR as founding director, focusing on connecting RDR’s work with current policy debates about how technology should be governed and regulated, to ensure that it supports human rights and democracy around the world.
Our staff team is eager to continue working with both directors in their new roles and promoting RDR’s vision of an internet that supports and sustains human rights. We are lucky to have these women leading us!
Read the full announcement from New America.
