Sam Gregory

Sam is an internationally recognized human rights advocate, trainer and video producer who helps people use the power of the moving image and participatory technologies to create human rights change. He directs WITNESS’ programmatic work, and leads on our Cameras Everywhere initiative - focused on empowering millions of people to use video effectively, safely and ethically.  In 2010, he was a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Resident on the future of video-based advocacy, and in 2012 he was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Heteaches on human rights and participatory media as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School.
 
Sam has created training tools and programs including the WITNESS Video Advocacy Institute (an intensive two-week training program), and was lead editor on Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism (Pluto Press, 2005). Over the past decade, Sam has worked extensively with human rights activists, particularly in Latin America and Asia, integrating video into impactful campaigns on a range of civil, political, social, economic and cultural human rights issues. Videos he has co-produced have been screened to decision-makers in the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Houses of Parliament, the United Nations and at film festivals worldwide, and have contributed to changes in policy, practice and law.
 
Widely known for his expertise in emerging forms of advocacy, Sam has most recently presented at Re:Publica, Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference, and SXSW Interactive. He publishes regularly in human rights, social entrepreneurship and visual media journals including most recently “Cameras Everywhere: Ubiquitous Video Documentation of Human Rights, New Forms of Video Advocacy and Concerns about Safety, Security, Dignity and Consent” in the Journal of Human Rights Practice (OUP, 2010).  A graduate of the University of Oxford, he completed a Masters in Public Policy as a Kennedy Memorial Scholar at Harvard. Sam is on the Board of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, and the Advisory Board of Games for Change. Follow his blogging here.