The lack of women, queer and trans persons, and diversity in technological fields in general and hacking more specifically is acute. To change this state of affair, critical approaches towards technologies, the tech/hacking culture, among others are needed. Looking at gender issues is admittedly important, but we must compound it with an intersectional analysis to be truly cognisant of existing systems of oppression. An intersectional approach requires all of us to engage with the diversity of cultures, social status, sexual orientations, ethnicities and other power structures that create various forms and levels of inequality (in tech production centers, access, design, usability, hacking potential, etc.) for different individuals.

Moreover, we believe that to have more feminist and post-colonial activists and practitioners at the forefront of the use and development of liberation and (free)dom technologies requires safe spaces to ignite desires!

The FemHack will focus on doing just that: triggering this desire towards feminist and post-colonial approaches to technology that foster differences, autonomy, liberation and social resistance. To start this process of liberating ourselves from patriarchal technologies, we will need to push a bit more the boundaries of technologies.

Besides, let’s not forget that everybody is an expert in relation to the technologies they use in their everyday life. And as we consider gender as one of the most pervasive social technologies ever created, we bet that everybody has a lot to share on this topic too! Join us in creating an international global event for women, queer and trans people, feminist and post-colonial activists to learn, share and connect on technical, theoretical and performative issues with the long-term goal of liberation and autonomy. Join our forces in challenging the systems of oppression we encounter on a day-to-day basis.

We as citizens and communities continue to organize against different systems of oppression be it: the so-called “austerity” measures, financial system bankruptcy, mass surveillance, infringement on privacy rights, governmental and business appetite for our (meta) data, witch hunts to rule our bodies, criminalization of our reproductive rights, etc.

Sabeen Mahmud was a Pakistani human rights activist. She was the founder and director The Second Floor (T2F), a Karachi-based café. She was also the president of the Karachi branch of TiE(The Indus Entrepreneurs), a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship. On 24 April 2015, she was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on her way home after hosting a seminar on the missing persons of Balochistan at T2F.

Sabeen hosted Pakistan’s first-ever hackathon. The hackathon was a weekend-long event with nine teams focusing on solutions to civic problems in Pakistan.

Sabeen once said: “I love and cherish the fact that technology has the potential to change lives. We need to devote ourselves to making enabling tools and technologies accessible to more and more people.”

In loving memory of Sabeen, we dedicate this first international feminist hackathon to her and all those who struggle to fight against injustice and discrimination around the world.

On saturday 23th of May, we will organise a feminist hackaton all over the world. Some activities will begin before and end after that day but on the 23th, we will pass the baton across different time zones and dedicate our global feminist hackaton to Sabeen Mahmud murdered in Pakistan the 24 of April 2015. We will use the hashtag #femhack to spread about what is going on in different social media platforms.If you want to join and propose an activity dealing with gender and technology, privacy and surveillance, digital security, hacking gender, software or hardware you just have to involve a local feminist group/organisation/collective, decide on an activity and submit a proposal in the following template. All activities will appear on the openstreetmap below and we will connect all of you sending you an invitation to join our moderated mailing list.

We are building this from the ground up! Come and join us in imagining, crafting and developing the “opting out” button(s) for feminist and post-colonial resistance online and offline. Alone we can not do it, but together we can change many things, this is not a one time stand alone feminist hackaton, this is just one of our many beginnings together, a swarm of cyborgs and embedded desires, we come from the internet and we will take back the tech and the streets. The revolution will also be feminist or it will not be!

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