Digital Rights Festival 2025

The conference opens with distinguished guests including Honorable Nahakul Subedi, Judge at the Supreme Court of Nepal and Ms. Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal. Prof. Dr. Rohan Samarajeeva, Chair of LIRNEasia, will share regional perspectives on digital rights and governance. The ceremony sets the stage for a day of critical dialogue on building trust in Nepal's digital ecosystem, emphasizing the crucial role of multi-stakeholder collaboration in shaping an equitable digital future.

As Nepal accelerates its digital transformation, this session addresses the pressing need to protect fundamental human rights in cyberspace. The digital frontier presents both unprecedented opportunities for empowerment and new challenges to privacy, freedom of expression, and digital security. This session brings together human rights defenders, policymakers, political analysts, and internet governance experts to examine how constitutional rights translate into the digital realm.

Algorithms increasingly shape access to information, opportunities, and services, yet often function as opaque systems with limited public oversight. This session examines algorithmic accountability, bias in AI systems, and digital platform governance, focusing on how Nepal can design frameworks that protect the public interest while sustaining innovation. Perspectives from government, academia, civil society, and industry ground the discussion in both policy and practice.

This interactive, workshop-style session collaboratively examines Nepal’s emerging AI policy landscape, recognizing that effective AI governance depends on broad, multi-stakeholder input. Bringing together participants from the technology sector, civil society, business, and disability rights communities, the session uses facilitated group work, presentations, and plenary discussion to map existing policies, identify gaps, and co-design pathways toward an inclusive AI ecosystem that serves all Nepalis.

In an environment of information abundance, distinguishing credible information from misinformation and disinformation has become increasingly difficult. This session examines the dual challenge of information integrity and digital literacy gaps in Nepal. Drawing on perspectives from government, media, journalism, and international research institutions, the discussion analyzes the information ecosystem, identifies key drivers of misinformation, and explores strategies for cultivating a digitally literate society capable of critical and responsible information consumption.

The conference concludes with reflections from distinguished guests including Hon. Ram Prasad Bhandari "Sambhav", Acting Chief Commissioner of the Election Commission, Senior Advocate Upendra Keshari Neupane, Founder of the Internet Governance Institute, and Nirjana Sharma, Lead for Communication and Information Unit at UNESCO. This closing session will synthesize key insights from the day's discussions and formalize commitments for 2026, establishing concrete action points for advancing digital rights, governance, and inclusion in Nepal. Participants will be invited to pledge specific contributions toward building a more trustworthy, equitable, and resilient digital future for all Nepalis.