When I first started working in technology as a developer, I was mostly focused on building things.
Writing code. Solving problems. Launching features.
I spent most of my time thinking about functionality, performance, and solving technical problems. Like many developers early in their careers, I was focused on building things.
That perspective started to change a few years ago while working with young people through technology education and mentorship programs in Kathmandu, Pokhara, and Butwal [3 provinces in Nepal. I met students who were excited to learn but often lacked access to opportunities that many take for granted. For many girls, the barriers weren’t just technical, they were social. They talked about being one of very few girls in their classes, doubting their abilities, or feeling like technology wasn’t a space where they truly belonged.
Gradually, I witnessed a real transformation when they had access to supportive mentors, practical technical workshops, and a community that believed in them. Students who were initially too shy to introduce themselves were later presenting their ideas, leading discussions, and exploring careers they once thought were out of reach.
Those experiences taught me that inclusion isn’t something we add after technology is built. It starts much earlier with access to learning, supportive communities, and the confidence to believe that you belong in the room. That realization has shaped how I think about technology ever since.
I found myself asking a different question:
Who gets to build technology, who gets to benefit from it, and who gets left behind?
Today, that question continues to shape my work through Initiative Digital Paila Nepal, where we create opportunities for young people, especially women and underrepresented communities, to access digital skills, leadership opportunities, and technology education. It also shapes how I think about my role as a technologist, not just as someone who builds systems, but as someone who considers their impact.
Attending DRAPAC26 in Manila, Philippines, as a Fellow gave me the opportunity to explore that question on a much larger scale.
Walking into the venue on the first day, I felt both excited and slightly overwhelmed. Around me were activists, journalists, researchers, policymakers, artists, community organizers, and technologists from across the Asia-Pacific region. Conversations flowed between sessions, over coffee, and in hallways. People were discussing surveillance, accessibility, artificial intelligence, online violence, community networks, and digital rights.
Despite coming from different countries and contexts, many of us were confronting similar questions.
How do we make technology more inclusive?
How do we protect people from digital harm?
And how do we ensure that innovation benefits everyone, not just those who already have power and access?
What struck me most was not simply the diversity of people in the room, but the willingness to imagine alternatives together. There was a shared understanding that while the challenges are complex, none of us are trying to solve them alone.
Carrying NetMission Into New Spaces
As a NetMission Ambassador, I often think about the role young people can play in shaping the future of the internet.
Many of the conversations at DRAPAC26 reminded me of discussions I first encountered through NetMission. I remember not just attending but facilitating sessions and writing case studies on Digital Rights and Justice and Human Rights Online. At DRAPAC26, these topics were being debated by people actively working on these challenges across the region.
One moment that stood out was realizing how often digital rights conversations come back to people. Whether the discussion was about artificial intelligence, online safety, or platform governance, the central question remained the same: who gets to participate, whose voices are heard, and who gets left out?
Those were questions I had already begun exploring through NetMission. DRAPAC26 simply expanded the conversation beyond borders.
For the first time, I found myself contributing to regional discussions not just as a participant, but as someone representing experiences and perspectives from Nepal.
Accessibility Is a Digital Rights Issue
One of my earliest contributions during DRAPAC26 was participating as a respondent in SAFEnet’s workshop, Breaking the Invisible Digital Walls: Examining the Accessibility of Public Service Websites for the Visually Impaired.
The session shared findings from a study that combined automated accessibility audits with user testing conducted by blind and low-vision participants. What stood out to me was how many barriers remained invisible until actual users tried navigating these websites themselves.
Features that may seem minor to developers such as missing labels, inaccessible forms, unclear navigation structures can completely prevent someone from accessing essential public services.
As a developer, this felt particularly important.
Accessibility is often treated as a checklist to complete near the end of a project. Yet the workshop reminded me that accessibility is fundamentally about dignity and participation. If someone cannot access a public service because of how a website is designed, the issue is not technical, it is social.
Meaningful change requires policymakers, government agencies, designers, and technology teams to treat accessibility as a non-negotiable standard rather than an optional improvement.
The session reinforced something I strongly believe:
Technology cannot be considered successful if entire communities are unable to use it.
The Responsibility of Technologists
One of the most meaningful experiences of the fellowship was participating as a panelist during the Closing Plenary.
Moderated by Nan Suttisome from EngageMedia, the discussion brought together perspectives from different sectors: policymaking, youth advocacy, media, technology, and the creative sector. Sharing the stage with Gustaff Harriman, Monisha Chaudhary, Paco Pangalangan, and Zachary Borromeo highlighted how collaborative action looks different depending on where we stand.
Representing the technologist perspective, I spoke about something I have been reflecting on for years: technology is often perceived as neutral, but every decision made during the design and development process carries consequences.
The choices we make determine who can access a platform, whose needs are prioritized, what data is collected, and whose voices are amplified.
I shared how collaboration cannot begin only after technology is built. Communities need to be involved from the beginning, during research, design, testing, and decision-making, not simply consulted once products are ready to launch.
One question continued surfacing throughout the discussion:
What would happen if care and equity were built into technology from the start instead of being added later as fixes or versions?
That conversation has stayed with me long after DRAPAC26 ended.
Imagining Feminist Digital Futures
Another highlight of my fellowship experience was co-facilitating a collaborative workshop alongside Body & Data, Activate Rights, Stop Online Harm, and Initiative Digital Paila Nepal.
Together, we facilitated Designing Feminist Digital Futures: From Harm to Collective Imagination.
As a facilitator, I entered the session wondering how participants from different countries, professions, and lived experiences would engage with conversations around artificial intelligence, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), and feminist design. These are complex topics, and I wasn’t sure how quickly a room full of strangers would open up.
To my surprise, it happened almost immediately.
More than 50 participants, from different age groups and backgrounds, actively shared their own experiences of online harassment, exclusion, algorithmic bias, and the complicated relationship many of us have with digital spaces. Some came from technical backgrounds, while others worked in advocacy, education, research, or community organizing. Yet despite our different perspectives, there was a shared understanding that the internet can be both empowering and deeply harmful.
The second half of the workshop was the part I had the opportunity to facilitate. We introduced participants to the design thinking process – empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test, and invited them to step into the roles of both users and designers. Working in small groups, they began reimagining digital platforms through the lens of the people who experience online harm most directly.
What stayed with me wasn’t just the prototypes themselves, but how thoughtfully every group approached the challenge. They weren’t only thinking about features or functionality. They talked about accessibility, inclusivity, safety, privacy, transparency, consent, moderation, and community care. People who had never worked in technology collaborated effortlessly with designers, researchers, activists, and developers, proving that meaningful ideas don’t come only from technical expertise.
The day before, during the Closing Plenary, I had spoken about how communities need to be involved from the very beginning of designing technology, and not just simply consulted after products are built. Seeing that idea come to life during this workshop was incredibly rewarding. People from completely different backgrounds came together, listened to one another, challenged assumptions, and collectively imagined digital spaces that reflected their shared values.
It reminded me that designing better technology is never just the responsibility of technologists. Some of the best ideas emerge when we create spaces where everyone feels they have something valuable to contribute.
I left that session feeling hopeful. Digital rights work isn’t only about identifying what’s broken, it is also about creating opportunities for people to imagine, design, and build something better together.
Bringing the Learning Home
One lesson I am bringing back to Nepal is the importance of designing with communities rather than for communities.
Through Initiative Digital Paila Nepal’s future digital literacy programs and conversations around inclusive technology, I want to create more opportunities for people traditionally left out of technology discussions to participate in shaping them.
I also left Manila with new connections across the region, people working on accessibility, online safety, digital rights, and community-led technology initiatives. While our contexts differ, many of our challenges overlap.
The solutions, too, can be collaborative.
Looking Ahead
DRAPAC26 reminded me that meaningful digital futures are not built by technologists alone.
They are built through collaboration between communities, activists, educators, policymakers, researchers, creatives, and young people willing to imagine something better.
I am grateful to EngageMedia, Dakila, the Foundation for Media Alternatives, and the DRAPAC26 team for making this fellowship possible. I am equally grateful to NetMission.Asia and APriGF for providing the foundation that first introduced me to conversations around internet governance and digital rights.
When I arrived at DRAPAC26, I carried a question that followed me throughout my career:
Who has the opportunity to create technology, and who is expected to simply adapt to it?
I left with a deeper understanding that answering that question requires more than technical solutions.
It requires listening, collaboration, and ensuring that the people most affected by technology are not merely users of digital systems, but active participants in shaping them.
Blog Post – July 8, 2026
Written by Evasana Pradhan (Reviewed by Jenie Fernando)