THANK YOU FOR SHOWING UP!
!شكرا لحضوركم

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Bread&Net 2026

From October 14–16, 2026, 816 people came together in Beirut and online for Bread&Net, joining 99 sessions across three days of exchange, learning, and collective imagination. Under the theme Realities Reimagined, this year’s gathering explored how we can reshape the digital realities we live in and work towards more just, inclusive, and collective futures. Across four main tracks, we reimagined technology beyond harm; power, accountability and resistance; collective power and movement building; and crisis response in digital spaces.

Together, we questioned the status quo, shared experiences, and imagined what else is possible.

Thank you to everyone who made this gathering what it was and continues to be part of this movement. The conversations don’t end here. We carry them forward, and we look forward to seeing you again in October 2027!

The Only Digital Rights Unconference 
In West Asia and North Africa 

4000+

Human Rights
Advocates

600+

Sessions

8 years

Of Imagining Better Futures

ART @ Bread&Net 2026

This year, we invited artists and creatives to interpret Realities Reimagined through their own lenses, and they delivered! For this edition, Bread&Net brought together a diverse range of artistic expressions, from installations and interactive works to visual art and creative experiments. Because technology doesn’t exist in isolation, and neither do the realities we imagine for it. Art and culture have always been part of how we understand, question, resist, and reshape the world around us. We’re happy to keep making space for these intersections at Bread&Net, bringing creativity, culture, and digital rights into the same conversation.

A big thank you to all the artists and creatives who shared their work with us. Below is a glimpse of some of the works exhibited at Bread&Net 2026.

Hakibat Najiya, Adeeb Farhat

Hakibat Najiya, Adeeb Farhat

Smartphone #2, Hamza Baroudi

How to Train Your Chatbot?, Decipher Studios

Cairo, Thalia Bassim

Echoes of Silence, Hassan Fakih

South 100 Times, Adeeb Farhat

South 100 Times, Adeeb Farhat

South 100 Times, Adeeb Farhat

Bread&Net 2026

Hackathons


This year, Bread&Net hosted two hands-on hackathons that brought together technologists, researchers, journalists, and digital rights practitioners to turn shared challenges into practical ideas and tools.

The Secure Communications Hackathon brought participants together to explore and prototype people-centered communication solutions designed for the realities of the SWANA region, from internet shutdowns and surveillance to device seizures and censorship. Meanwhile, the MENA AI Hackathon: Building Local AI Tools for Internet Governance, organized as part of the CADE project, brought together participants to experiment with locally adapted AI agents that support digital rights advocacy and Internet Governance work.

Both hackathons created space for interdisciplinary collaboration, practical learning, and imagining technology that responds to the needs of our communities.

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Bread&Net 2025

A year has passed since Bread&Net 2025. The questions raised in those sessions: who controls digital infrastructure, who bears the cost of platform decisions, and what accountability actually looks like in contexts of war, growing authoritarianism and repression, have only grown more pressing.
Across two days, 620 people from 39 countries worked through those questions together: in sessions on AI and surveillance, platform accountability, legal strategies, digital sovereignty, and more.
In 2025, we welcomed new people into the digital rights movement, and left with a clearer sense of where to push.
To revisit Bread&Net 2025 in numbers and read the full outcomes, themes, and conclusions in detail, you can now visit our outcomes reports:

Quantitative Outcomes Report
Bread&Net 2025
Qualitative Outcomes Report
Bread&Net 2025

Our Partners

Media Partners

Advisory Committee

Each year, we have the privilege of welcoming key members from our regional communities who volunteer their time and efforts to discuss, propose, and provide recommendations on various topics and issues related to Bread&Net. Be it our code of conduct, themes, sessions, or topics, our advisory committee consists of qualified, knowledgeable, motivated individuals who are active on many fronts when it comes to digital rights in West Asia and North Africa.
Meet this year’s Advisory Committee!

Nour Naim 

AI Governance & GRC Specialist

Ali Sibai

Digital Rights & Information Security Practitioner

Lucie Doumanian

Co-Executive Director, Digital Action

Wafaa Heikal

Researcher, Journalist, Independent

Sarra Hannachi

Tech Researcher, Msc.

Abed Kataya

Media Program Manager, SMEX

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