Renata Avila

BIO

Renata Avila is a Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights advocate. Specializing in Intellectual Property and Technology, her work addresses the crucial intersection between human rights, information, technological change and the power disparities between the Global North and South. She has represented indigenous victims of genocide and other human rights abuses, including the prominent indigenous leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum, and more recently Wikileaks, in their struggle for freedom of information. 

As part of her longstanding advocacy work in the field of Internet and Human Rights, she leads with World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners – Lee a global campaign to uphold human rights in the digital age in more than seventy five countries. Avila sits on the Board of Creative Commons, is a trustee of the Courage Foundation, – an organisation set up to assist whistleblowers at risk – and is an advisory board member of Diem25, exploring the potential of decentralised technologies in Europe. She is currently based in Belgrade and Guatemala, and is writing a book about Digital Colonialism and advises the Web Foundation on their new Digital Equality strategies.