Digital Futures Gathering – Thriving Futures for All

In early October, we held our second "Digital Futures Gathering – Thriving Futures For All"  at Berlin Global Village, in collaboration with bff, the German Federal Association of Rape Crisis Centres and Women’s Counselling Centres, Chayn, International Women* Space, and SHARE foundation, facilitated by Ouassima Laabich. We gathered to imagine and shape thriving, violence-free digital futures – together with over 55 participants from all over Europe.

If there ever was one, the line between digital violence and offline violence is no more – and as a result, it‘s become clear that our collective approaches to meaningfully address violence of all kinds need to be holistic and joined up. This is what we set out to do in our Digital Futures Gathering 2025. This meant inviting people who weren‘t often in the same room – perhaps even people who disagreed with each other on how to handle issues like child safety, or how perpetrators of violence should be treated, for example. Despite the topic –  digital violence –  we intentionally invited relatively few people whose work focuses explicitly on this topic, wanting instead to centre other perspectives on the issue.

As we realised, before we can get into the hopeful space of imagining the futures we want, first we needed to create a space with care for each other at the centre – through an awareness team looking out for everyone’s wellbeing, through healthy and tasty food, through breaks, moments of connection, and room for quiet time. Holding a space for feelings of anger, sadness, frustration, or hopelessness, was just as much part of the gathering as was training our futuring muscles with all of our senses – the smell of cedar, the taste of za’atar, and the sound of joyful music, as well as through dancing, laughter, and meditative breathing.

We began by ‘holding multiplicities’ –  realising that multiple things can be true at the same time, and making space for people to surface those realities. Some people shared how they felt a deep need to engage in party politics, ensuring that the efforts of civil society went beyond just advocating from the outside and actually into engaging with the political system in terms of representation. Others mentioned how increasing authoritarianism in their countries meant that they were left in fear of repression against NGOs and journalists, meaning that the very premise of ‘thriving futures’ felt incredibly far away from their reality.

It became clear early on that the diversity of perspectives was matched by a huge diversity in realities, too. Tactics that worked for some, would not work for others. But at the same time, there was a huge amount of appreciation for the expertise in the room, the strategic insights and experience from movements that had long faced repression or attacks, and over the course of the two days, we created opportunities for that knowledge to be shared with others – across generations, geographies and movements.

Similarly, contradictions were felt in how we – members of leftist, progressive movements and spaces –  were not only fighting the far-right in our own countries, but increasingly also left battling with people from within our own movements. Many heads were nodding when people spoke of how leftist spaces are often pitted against each other all too easily, drawn into a game of purity politics, and how much harder that makes solidarity and collaboration (and as a result, how much easier the work of the far-right becomes, moving their agenda forward while progressive spaces are focused on internal squabbles). It became crystal clear to us all that that approach is simply not enough at a time like this, when collaboration and working towards shared visions is more needed than ever.

But how to get there?

Perhaps by making space for the things we don’t often get a space to speak: the anger, the grief, the emotions that we too often bury, and allowing ourselves to heal. Making space for rituals, for connecting on a human level. Reclaiming technology as a site of pleasure. Directing our attention to the infrastructure that we take for granted, and acknowledging that we have more agency than we know. By accepting conflict as a natural part of any relationship, not as an end to that relationship – and by developing our own internal muscles for how to deal with productive conflict.

We also dug into specific digital issues, too: in different formats, participants dreamed up feminist futures for reporting and platform accountability, addressing current reporting mechanisms on social media under the Digital Services Act (DSA); raised questions of feminist tech infrastructure and current EU digital policies such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA); plotted strategic ways forward for criminalised communities, and shared experiences of building digital tools for survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). The feeling of technology being seen as a ‘silver bullet’ –  a magical solution – to social issues, has long been present, and the narrative of AI has served to strengthen that in many ways. Our power in response to those narratives lies in nuance, by listening broadly and sharing experiences.

Time and again, conversations ended on the same note: the importance of healing, resilience, and sitting with discomfort, being open to changing our minds and perhaps even working with people we don’t always agree with. As participants flagged, none of the power structures we’re fighting today are new  –  but of course, the problems we’re fighting are trying to distract us by reinventing themselves. And there’s so much to be learned from generations past, on how they came together during turbulent times.

There was a shared appreciation for spaces of hope and imagination like these, particularly from people in countries with dire political contexts, and from people whose daily work is at the frontlines, working with survivors of violence. The very presence of so many participants was in many ways a sign of resistance, of hope and of commitment to building the futures we want and deserve.

It also became clear that we need more spaces like this –  opportunities for people from different countries, social movements, spaces to come together and listen, and perhaps even change their minds. Spaces for heated debate where nobody’s humanity is questioned, but held front and centre; where uncomfortable alliances can be forged, and shared visions developed.

As part of the planning for this gathering, we at SUPERRR put away a small pot of money for what we call ‘flash grants’ –  small amounts of money to support participants in making ideas that came out of the gathering, a reality. We’re in the process of assigning those grants, via a participatory grantmaking process, and we hope to be able to share the outputs and outcomes of those flash grant projects with you in the coming months, so keep an eye on the Digital Futures website.  

For us, this gathering was not a one-off occasion to address the pressing issues of digital violence. Rather, it was the beginning spark of building new connections, nurturing existing ones, and enabling a space to move beyond criticising the status-quo, to start imagining collaboratively, what are the digital futures that we want and how can we get there?