Dear community,
We end this year in a quietness of reflection – what does it mean to seed and sustain feminist tech organising and movements at this time?
Since we launched our first Seed, Grow and Sustain grant in 2022, we discovered that there are so many feminist groups and activists all over the world doing really important work in their contexts. Feminist tech engagement looks like hotlines and close accompaniment of those who experienced gender-based violence online in Indonesia, Brazil and Pakistan. It also looks like the development of consent and privacy-centred apps for safe abortion in Rwanda and community-built local language classifiers to address hate speech in India. And it looks like critical and creative engagement with the feminist politics of data in East Africa and Mexico, and context-responsive digital literacy for young women and girls in Haiti and Gambia. And more.
But this work is admittedly hard. Feminists who engage with technology as a site of power, justice and change are called to do more, even as we are confronting a fraying of energy and capacities. And we are compelled to have the clarity of vision, even as the immediate future remains uncertain. This year has seen sudden droughts and deep fissures in the funding landscape, and both digital rights and gender justice work have been especially affected. As we witness the maturing of feminist tech organising with leadership transitions, the container for the work is increasingly challenged through external and movement stresses. In the midst of this, developments in mainstream technology continue to drive the many protracted, interconnected crises of war, environmental impact, economic and social instability and injustice.
At this juncture, it feels important to take a pause, and share some of the work that has grounded us, brought us joy, and a coalescing of energy and inspiration in the year.
Making tech for a world we want
The year started with getting to know more than 100 tech projects from 70 countries that centred safety and gendered priorities and realities through the Tech Safety Showcase – organised in partnership with UNFPA, UK FCDO and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. We were able to spotlight the 7 finalists’ work at the CSW in March, and learnt what feminist tech can look like from Euki, Campus Pal, BullyID and more.
Exploring and playing with tech
We brought together about 20 nodes, activists, artists and resource persons to our first in-person Feminist Tech Playground (FTP) convening – exploring and expanding our understanding of connectivity and crisis. From building batteries out of mud and nerding out over electricity, to rethinking accompaniment and risk in protracted crises, centering archives at times of conflict, unpacking antennas to experiment with high frequency/shortwave radio and more. The FTP continues with play sessions for further co-learning into the next year.
Strengthening our ecosystems
Continuing some of the conversations from last year’s Trueque, and in response to the increasingly hostile environment for social justice and rights-based organising, Numun collaborated with FAU LAC at digital rights spaces to speak about care at the centre of tech infrastructures and engagement. Deepening the discussions, we collaborated with The Engine Room and held an online skills-sharing series on risk assessment and mitigation, strengthening our tech use and data practices, for and with women’s funds and feminist funds.
Resourcing movements
A big highlight was being able to visit some of our nodes in Kenya in their space of work and organising, including Pollicy and groups working on gender justice, labour and sexual rights. The ability to sit down together and discuss current contexts and needs, explore and admire spaces, and get to know each others’ teams a bit more was such a welcomed grounding on why we do what we do as an activist fund. We continue to grow our relationship with the 37 Grow and Sustain nodes from the SGS grants, and this year, there were 8 Plugin grants accessed by nodes for collaboration and relationship building with each other.
Weaving connections
We piloted the 7x7x7 seed grant this year, partnering with 9 environmental and social justice activists and groups in Mongolia, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Malaysia, El Salvador, Mexico and the Philippines to explore how digital technologies have impacted the work they are doing, in the territories they are in. And a second round of collaboration grants was made for the Asia Disinfo Co-Lab for seeding further ideas on addressing this issue from different sector and movement perspectives, with 5 new grants made.
Conjuring different movement economies
This has been a threaded and growing conversation we have been stewarding and contributing to at different spaces – at the closing plenary of RightsCon with HRFN, huddled workshop sessions at the Global Gathering and DRAPAC, the keynote address at the Prototype Fund 8th year celebration, with artists, social entrepreneurs and philanthropy at the Skoll World Forum, with feminist resource strategists at Spring Strategies and Gender CoLab, and many more circles of conversations. We are inspired and excited to experiment and cook up different modalities and alternative composting systems for re-wilding our movement economies with collaborators and co-dreamers.
And as a last big news to share – Numun is autonomous! We registered as an independent entity and will be operating on our own in 2026, with a wealth of learning and much gratitude from our experience of being incubated then fiscally sponsored by WomenWin since our start. Next year will also be our next open call for the Seed Grow and Sustain grant. It will be a big year for us in many ways, and a lot of work. But we look forward to this in continued collaboration and community with you as part of this critical work to make the world we need and want.
For now, rest is resistance.
In shared activism and solidarity,
The Numun Team
Some publications:
If feminist philanthropy wants to build a better world, it needs to move online – Alliance Magazine
The Internet Was Supposed to Set Us Free. Feminists Are Fighting to Make Sure It Still Does – conversation with Ford Foundation
A mess of A.I mania, funding feminist tech and silicon valley scams with Jac sm Kee – podcast with Tiff Mugo