Ramy Raoof
Senior Technologist
Cairo
Ramy is a technologist and privacy researcher, interacts with a wide spectrum ranging from NGOs, journalists, lawyers, politicians, and artists on the intersection of tech and social causes, mainly on privacy and security, by devoting his skills as a techie and passion for free/open culture. Ramy develops privacy protocols, and in his research he focuses on surveillance patterns and holistic privacy. In the course of his work, he has provided and developed digital security plans and strategies for NGOs and members of the media, emergency response in cases of physical threats, support on publishing sensitive materials, secure systems for managing sensitive information, and operational plans for human rights emergency response teams, in Egypt and the MENA region. Ramy has been volunteering with different NGOs and civil liberty groups in Central & South America, to enhance their privacy and security through means of behavioral change based on understanding surveillance and threat models in their own contexts and environments.
Among different hats, he is Senior Technologist at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), Research Fellow with Citizen Lab and he sits on Tor Project's board of directors.
Ramy’s work was recognized on multiple occasions, in January 2018, he got named in "Top Voices in the Digital World: Thought Leaders in the Arab World 2018" for activism countering government censorship, published by Gottlieb Duttweiler Institut. In October 2017, he received the 2017 international award Heroes of Human Rights and Communications Surveillance, "for exhaustive efforts to reveal invasive and harmful surveillance tactics that are being used to harm users at risk.", by Access Now. In May 2016 he received the international Bobs Award - Best of Online Activism in recognition for his work in digital security and privacy. In 2012, he was ranked number 10 by the Newsweek Magazine in the Revolutionaries list of the Digital Power Index.