Ava leads People vs Big Tech, a growing movement of more than 150 organisations working to secure a safer, fairer digital future.

Over the past seven years, she has built deep expertise at the intersection of technology and human rights — both in her current role and previously at Global Witness, where she founded and led a multidisciplinary team of investigative journalists, researchers, advocates and communications specialists focused on tackling the harms caused by major technology platforms.

Her work has exposed how Meta’s job advertising algorithm discriminates on the basis of gender, potentially breaching equalities legislation. She has also led investigations demonstrating that platforms including Meta, TikTok, X and YouTube have failed to adequately address incitement to genocide and violence in Myanmar and Ethiopia, as well as serious electoral misinformation surrounding major elections in the US, Brazil, Kenya, the UK, South Africa, Ireland and India.

Her team further revealed how TikTok’s algorithm systematically pushed users toward far-right content ahead of elections in Poland, Romania and Germany. Most recently, she headed a climate disinformation unit, uncovering, among other findings, a bot network supporting Azerbaijan’s COP presidency.

Ava’s investigations have been featured by major global outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, AP, PA and AFP, and have contributed to multiple legal complaints.

She also brings a strong background in campaigning on gender equality and tax justice.

Marc Silver is a filmmaker and story consultant who, over the last two decades, has created a body of work that probes the systems of power that shape our world. 

Themes that Marc has focussed on include Black Lives Matter, migration, conflict and refugees, indigenous knowledge, the climate crisis, art and Big Tech.

His first feature length film ‘Who is Dayani Cristal?’ premiered at the Sundance Festival 2013 where it won the Cinematography Award: World Cinema Documentary and the Amnesty International Best Documentary Award 2014. 

His Oscar shortlisted and Emmy nominated film ‘3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets’ premiered at the Sundance Festival 2015 winning the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact.

Over the years, Marc has directed, shot and produced numerous films, including for the Guardian, New York Times, HBO, Amazon Prime, Amnesty International and Amazon Watch.

From 2018-20 Marc was an embedded Creative Storytelling Fellow within Amnesty International’s digital rights team.

In 2023 Marc’s fourth feature length film ‘Antidote’, about indigenous knowledge and the plant medicine ayahuasca was released in cinemas.

Marc latest film Molly vs THE MACHINES was released in 2026. It reveals the story behind a young girl’s ‘death-by-algorithm’.

Prior to documentary filmmaking, Marc was Creative Director of content for musicians including Jamie Cullum, Nitin Sawhney and Michael Nyman.

Leanda Barrington-Leach is the Executive Director of the 5Rights Foundation, where she leads the work of the global team across research, youth engagement, advocacy, standardisation and compliance, fighting for the digital world to cater for children, by design and default. Leanda is a passionate life-long advocate for human rights, with more than two decades experience in international policy spanning diplomacy, strategic consultancy and charity sector work. She joined 5Rights from the European External Action Service where she was Adviser to the Secretary General focusing on Strategic Communications and the fight against Disinformation.

Annika Östergren Pofantis is a senior expert and case handler at the European Commission, specialising in online child protection under the Digital Services Act (DSA). In this role, she led the Commission’s work on the DSA Guidelines for the protection of minors. Prior to this, she spearheaded policy development in digital skills, notably as the coordinator of EU Code Week, a grassroots initiative promoting coding and computational thinking across Europe. She has also held roles in stakeholder engagement, strategic communication and policy areas including environment and statistics at the European Commission.

Mark is the EU advocacy lead for international human rights organisation ARTICLE 19. ARTICLE 19 is a global civil society organisation that works for a world where all people everywhere can freely express themselves and actively engage in public life without fear of discrimination. To protect free expression online, we advocate for pro-competitive solutions to dilute corporate power and guarantee diversity, openness, and fairness.

Based in Brussels, Mark oversees advocacy across a broad range of files where freedom of speech and access to information issues arise; files include inter alia, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) as well as work on the European Commission's Anti-SLAPPs Directive. 

In the past Mark was Team Leader for the European Commission on a data protection project overseeing implementation of data protection legislation in non-EU states, with a focus on the Global South and Asia. Before Brussels, Mark was also a Regional Director for an US development finance non-profit managing teams across the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt) over a 4.5-year stint and spent 4 years as an EU policy advisor in London for the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). He has an undergraduate degree in Economics & Finance and master’s degrees in European Economics and Public Affairs and Public Policy. He is currently taking a postgraduate in EU Competition law at King’s College, London