News

Join our report launch!

Join us for the launch of our new report sharing learnings from our research into information ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are currently accepting applications from organisations based in Sub-Saharan Africa, for Matchbox intensive support partnerships beginning in October 2024.

2023 was a year in which we provided targeted strategic support for a record 85 partners, published 3 research reports, piloted a successful cohort learning programme, established new ways of working and created new organisational structures that set up our work for 2024 and into the future.

Dalia Othman has been selected by our Board as The Engine Room’s other Co-Executive Director, to lead the organisation alongside Paola Mosso from mid-March

Our ED, Julia Keseru, will be leaving The Engine Room at the end of this year. Read her letter, as well as a letter from our board.

The Engine Room is among the initial cohort of 10 organisations that form the Global Network for Social Justice and Digital Resilience

Our 2022 retrospective is up! Read it here.

Part of our work at The Engine Room includes helping partners and peers with questions they have around tech and data. Since a lot of organisations come to us with similar concerns, we have compiled some of the key questions we get asked in the following FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). 

We’re welcoming a new Interim ED, a new board member and going through leadership transitions.

From 2022, we’ll be running our Matchbox programme a little differently. After months of research and reflection, we have decided to make our Light Touch Support programme (LiTS) the primary way through which we select Matchbox partnerships.

In the past days, Colombia has seen a rapid increase of pushback against civil society, as people took to the streets to protest against tax reforms proposed by the current government.  In response to the violent repression of the current social mobilisations in the country, we are offering dedicated light-touch support to activists, organisations and […]

Last year we piloted an initiative called Community Connections at the Responsible Data mailing list, where we connected members of the community based on shared interests in responsible data(RD)-related topics, allowing them to chat about topics and projects related to responsible data. Learn how you can join the next round.

Seven years of Matchbox partnerships have given us many insights on what kinds of organisations we can best partner with, and how. We have rooted our approach to organisational support in the pursuit for justice, equality and equity. Our new strategy re-affirms this commitment and provides the foundation upon which we can further elaborate what our in-depth support will look like in the coming years.

This is the first in a series of posts exploring our mission, vision, principles and priorities for the coming years. To read about the ways we’re trying to get where we’re going–how we’re implementing our new strategy–take a look at this post from Zara, our Deputy Director. A lot has happened since 2017, when we […]

Though it will look quite different this year, we are still very much looking forward to exchanging knowledge, experiences and solidarity at RightsCon this year. We’re keen to talk about justice, responsible data, ethical decision-making, advocacy, the potentials (and pitfalls) of new technologies and even more that we might not even know about yet! Take […]

This year, the Responsible Data community turns five. Over these past years, community members have found each other in offline and online spaces to share ideas, questions and resources around the responsible use of technology and data in their work.  We are proud to be part of this active community that continues to grow, drawing […]

Lee este post en español. In Latin America–as we see elsewhere–the individuals, groups and organisations that make up civil society are faced with limited time and resources to carry out their work and reflect on their learning. Many operate in challenging and ever-changing contexts that often move away from transparency, accountability and democracy due to […]

At the Engine Room, one of our core goals is to support civil society to reduce digital waste. In the past, we’ve looked at how transparency and accountability initiatives in South Africa and Kenya selected digital tools, and we found that more than half built new tools from scratch. In many cases, these tools were […]

Earlier this year, we kicked off a project dedicated to understanding how the organisational security community is growing and what ways there are to support that growth, partnering with Internews. Through this project, we hope to highlight findings that are especially valuable for at-risk organisations and to contribute to knowledge around impact measurement in this […]

Over the past year, data protection legislation has had a significant impact on the work of civil society, especially with the advent of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This impact is often seen as a negative one, and the stories we most often see revolve around this negativity, too. However, we know that […]

Today, we are thrilled to announce six new additions to join the Matchbox family in 2019!

Following an extensive and thorough search, we are thrilled to announce that Julia Keseru is the new Executive Director of The Engine Room. Julia has been an instrumental part of The Engine Room’s team for years – first leading the global Matchbox program, later as Deputy Director, and twice as the organisation’s acting Executive Director. […]

We’re honored to share this profile of Alix, our Executive Director, and her work with The Engine Room and beyond.

Our Executive Director recently announced that she will be leaving her post. Recruiting for a role like this will be a first for us, but we’re up for the challenge. If you are savvy and thoughtful about the role of tech and data in social change, are passionate about strong, positive organisational culture, and love the dynamic complexity of running a remote, global organisation, then this might be the job for you.

As you might have heard by now, we are redesigning responsibledata.io, the website for the responsible data community! The redesign is funded by Stanford’s Philanthropy and Civil Society team, who brought together the Good Data Collaborative – including SIMLab, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Future of Privacy Forum – to identify gaps […]

Join our next community call on Monday July 17th, at 5pm CET / 11am EST, using Uber Conference (details on how to join the call are below).

Today marks an important milestone in our Matchbox journey. We are thrilled to announce our three new Matchbox partners in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Anti-Corruption Coalition (ACCU) from Uganda, MSME-ASI from Nigeria, and Code for Sierra Leone (code4salone).

As an organisation, The Engine Room makes a lot of choices. Some of them big: Who will we accept funding from, how will we grow smartly? Some of them small: should we go to this event or that event, what colour should the background of that website be? When you add up all of these […]