What digital-freedom question do you think ordinary people are not asking yet — but probably should be? Privacy? Identity? Speech? Access? Financial freedom? Surveillance? Something else entirely? Interested in the questions that are still below the surface.

If you’re building freedom tech, bring the tool — not just the claim. Let people try it. Explain what it protects. Explain what it doesn’t. Talk through the trade-offs. Freedom Fest should make alternatives easier to understand in practice.

Open technology matters partly because “trust us” doesn’t scale very well. Being able to inspect, run, replace or leave a system changes the relationship between the user and whoever operates it. Where does openness matter most to you: money, identity, messaging, publishing or somewhere else?

Which matters more when new technology is introduced: What it can do today? Or what it could enable once the infrastructure exists? Not a rhetorical question. There’s a real tension between judging present use and future capability.

One day. Three spaces. One big question: How do we protect human freedom as more of life becomes digital? Talks. Panels. Workshops. Demos. Freedom tech. Community. 📍 Manchester 🗓️ 21 November 2026 Join us: freedomfest.now