CATCH UP ON OUR NEWS & SEE WHAT'S COMING UP
At The Engine Room, we work to build an ecosystem of digital tools that are values-aligned and reflect the needs of activists and targeted communities across the Global Majority. As part of this work, and as a service provider for OTF’s User Experience & Discovery (UXD) Lab, we conduct no-cost UX research projects to improve the usability and accessibility of open source, privacy-preserving internet freedom tools that provide protections against surveillance, censorship, and repression to those advancing social justice on the ground.
As the climate crisis deepens, influenced by extractive Big Tech infrastructures, groups from the Majority World impacted by these technologies are developing small, resource-efficient, community-centered climate solutions to pressing environmental challenges. Over the next year, we will center those groups in a full-cycle initiative exploring how locally driven, climate resilient AI technologies are designed and developed, and how they can be adopted in care-based and responsible ways.
We are excited to welcome the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT) to our 2026 Matchbox Program. IMPACT champions Indigenous rights and self-determination in Kenya.
How do you build a digital lifeline for survivors of gender-based violence across six countries with limited connectivity, multiple languages, and complex cross-border realities? Over the past six months, we worked alongside JDWS to explore this question through the co-development of Deenal (meaning “protection” in Fulani), a multilingual alert system connecting survivors of gender-based violence to case managers and support services across Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania, and Chad.
How can civil society safely and ethically adopt AI?That’s the question many organizations are asking as artificial intelligence tools become more accessible and increasingly incorporated into internal workflows.
We’re excited to welcome Instituto Lamparina to our Matchbox Program this year. Based in Brazil, Lamparina is building narrative power to strengthen democracy through a gender, racial, and climate justice lens, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with them over the coming months.
