Global Voices Summit in Kathmandu

More than 300 media practitioners from 40 countries will be in Kathmandu this week for the Global Voices Summit 2024 for two days of deliberations on challenges and opportunities in the new digital media space.  

This is the ninth Summit of Global Voices on 6-7 December in which journalists, translators, activists, technologists, policymakers and development experts discuss issues related to free expression and language diversity. 

Global Voices was founded 20 years ago as an international multilingual community of editors and journalists, translators and human rights activists to use the Internet to tell stories that build understanding across borders. 

Its content is translated and shared in the media across the world in 52 languages, including Nepali. Participants will also examine threats to media freedom in authoritarian regimes, including those with elected autocrats, and also discuss political activism and climate justice.

“Throughout the two days we will examine threats like transnational repression and digital authoritarianism, explore open knowledge initiatives in a fragmenting internet,” says Georgia Popplewell, a journalist from Trinidad and Tobago who is Managing Director of Global Voices.

Since 2006, Global Voices Summits have brought together innovative digital activists and citizen media networks from around the world. Past Summits were held in London, New Delhi, Budapest, Santiago de Chile, Nairobi, Cebu City, and Colombo. Nepali Times has partnered with Global Voices for the Kathmandu Summit.

“For each Summit, we seek a location that is of strategic importance for citizen media, and consider the country’s press freedom record and ease of access for visitors of different nationalities,” Popplewell added. “Nepal is home to a dynamic and diverse media landscape, which has managed to grow in the context of a fraught transition to democracy.  The rest of the world has much to learn from the opportunities and challenges that Nepal's many online communities have experienced.”

The packed Summit agenda will kick off on Thursday with a plenary panel on The Past, Present and Future of Digital Conversations in Nepal with Ujjwal Acharya of Journalism Academy and Nepali Times publisher Kunda Dixit. Other conversations will be on topics like blogging, digital connectivity, AI and deep fakes, state control of internet content and multilingual media. 

News stories from Nepal are regularly translated across the languages of Global Voices, and the service also carries off-beat stories from Nepal. Recent ones include why Esperanto is so popular in Nepal, the vanishing craft of bamboo baskets, and Nepalis tricked into joining the Russian Army.

Summit sessions will be available online and highlights posted on X, Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon.