Proposal

APrIGF 2026 Session Proposal Submission Form
Part 1 - Lead Organizer
Contact Person
Ms. Shumaila Hussain Shahani
Email
Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) *
Tech Global Institute
Designation
Policy & Advocacy Lead
Gender
Female
Economy of Residence
Pakistan
Stakeholder Group
Civil Society
Part 2 - Session Proposal
Session Title
From Shutdown to Solidarity: Co-Designing a South Asia Rapid-Response Protocol for Internet Shutdowns
Thematic Track of Your Session

  • Option

    • Primary: Digital Resilience and Building of Trust
    • Secondary: Universal and Meaningful Connectivity
Session Format
Workshop (60 minutes)
Where do you plan to organize your session?
Offsite from the venue at a local hub (with online moderator for questions and comments from remote participants)
Specific Issues for Discussion
South Asia experiences some of the highest rates of internet shutdowns in the world. Governments cut access during elections, protests and periods of unrest, and at times during school examinations. The cost falls hardest on the people least able to absorb it, including patients who cannot reach a doctor, families trying to confirm each other are safe, and small traders who lose their only means of payment. When access goes, so does the ability to document what is happening while it happens.

The response to this remains largely improvised and national. A group in one country challenges a shutdown through its own courts, another runs an advocacy campaign, and a third gathers evidence, but very little of that work crosses borders or gets reused. With each new shutdown, people begin again from close to nothing.

This workshop sets out to address that gap by building something concrete together. Over the hour, participants will draft the skeleton of a South Asia rapid-response protocol, a practical and adaptable playbook for the first hours and days of a shutdown. The session works through the components that matter most: moving a legal challenge quickly, documenting and measuring the shutdown so the evidence holds up, coordinating advocacy across borders, and organising mutual aid for affected communities. The aim is a usable first draft that the regional community can continue to refine and rely on.
Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF
Shutdowns are the starkest example of an internet that fails in a crisis, which places this session at the centre of Digital Resilience and Building of Trust. They also speak to Universal and Meaningful Connectivity, since there is no meaningful connectivity if the connection can be switched off at the moment it is most needed.

What this session adds is action rather than another round of agreement that shutdowns are harmful. Most shutdown discussions stop at documenting harm. This one begins there and works toward the shared response infrastructure the region continues to lack. By the close, participants have co-produced a draft protocol they can take home, adapt to their own legal and political context, and improve over time, creating a common resource that outlives the session. The result will be written up for the APrIGF Synthesis Document so that it feeds into wider regional work.

The design of the session matters as well. Responding to a shutdown well calls for several different skills, so the session deliberately brings together people who rarely sit at the same table: lawyers who litigate shutdowns, technologists who measure them, advocates who mobilise against them, and the telecom operators who receive the order to suspend access. Bringing those perspectives into one room to work on a single practical problem is the kind of multistakeholder, cross-border cooperation that a resilient internet depends on.
Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right)
Time frame (e.g. 5 minutes, 20 minutes, should add up to the time limit of your selected session format) Description
5 minutes The lead facilitator sets out the problem and the goal for the hour, which is to leave with a draft rapid-response protocol
10 minutes Two short inputs (~ 5 minutes each): an advocate on cross-border campaigning, and a telecom or ISP voice on receiving a shutdown order. Each input closes with a question for the room
30 minutes Four breakout groups each take one part of the protocol: legal challenge, documentation and measurement, advocacy coordination, and mutual aid. Each group has a station lead and a note-taker, and drafts concrete actions for the first hours and first days. The online facilitator runs a remote group on equal terms
10 minutes Groups report back. The facilitators assemble the four parts into a single draft protocol on a shared screen, and the room identifies where it is thin or unrealistic
5 minutes Close: The facilitators set out how participants can keep contributing to the draft after APrIGF and how the result feeds the Synthesis Document
Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) - (Required)

  • Moderator (Primary)

    • Name: Prateek
    • Organization: Tech Global Institute
    • Designation: Head of Programs and Partnerships
    • Gender: Male
    • Economy / Country of Residence: India
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Confirmed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://techglobalinstitute.com/members/prateek-waghre/

  • Moderator (Facilitator)

    • Name: Disha
    • Organization: Tech Global Institute
    • Designation: Program Manager, APAC
    • Gender: Female
    • Economy / Country of Residence: India
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: Online
    • Status of Confirmation: Proposed
    • Link of Bio (URL only): https://techglobalinstitute.com/members/disha-verma/

  • Speaker 1

    • Name: Priya Ahsan Chowdhury
    • Organization: Independent
    • Designation: Advocate Supreme Court of Bangladesh
    • Gender: Female
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Bangladesh
    • Stakeholder Group: Civil Society
    • Expected Presence: Online
    • Status of Confirmation: Invited

  • Speaker 2

    • Name: Farieha
    • Organization: Bolo Bhi
    • Designation: Co-founder & Journalist
    • Gender: Female
    • Economy / Country of Residence: Pakistan
    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: In-person
    • Status of Confirmation: Invited

  • Speaker 3

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 4

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One

  • Speaker 5

    • Stakeholder Group: Select One
    • Expected Presence: Select One
    • Status of Confirmation: Select One
Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.
Responding to a shutdown takes several different skills, so contributors were chosen to cover them rather than repeat one viewpoint. Prateek Waghre (TGI) leads in person, bringing a technologist-turned-policy background and years of work on shutdowns and the information ecosystem in India. Disha Verma (TGI) facilitates online, running the remote group and bringing expertise on state deployment of technology and surveillance. Farieha Aziz, co-founder of Bolo Bhi and a journalist, anchors advocacy and media response from Pakistan. Priya Chowdhury, a Supreme Court of Bangladesh lawyer, leads the legal component. Two further contributors are sought to add a technical-community voice on measuring and documenting shutdowns and a telecom or private-sector voice on receiving shutdown orders.
If you need assistance to find a suitable speaker to contribute to your session, or an onsite facilitator for your online-only session, please specify your request with details of what you are looking for.
We would welcome the Committee’s help securing two contributors who would broaden both the expertise and the geographic range of the session. First, a network-measurement technologist to lead the documentation and measurement component. Second, a telecom or internet service provider representative, or a former telecom regulator, who can speak to receiving and implementing shutdown orders. Where possible, we would value introductions to contributors based in countries beyond India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, which would widen the session’s reach.
Has AI been used to develop this proposal?
No
Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2026.
No
Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2026?
Yes
Upon evaluation by the Program Committee, your session proposal may only be selected under the condition that you will accept the suggestion of merging with another proposal with similar topics. Please state your preference below:
Yes, I am willing to work with another session proposer on a suggested merger.
Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers)
    Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers)
      Consent
      I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2026.