Sam GREGORY
Director – Programs, Strategy & Innovation WITNESS
Sam Gregory is an award-winning technologist and advocate, and the Director of Programs, Strategy and Innovation at WITNESS.org which helps people use video and technology to defend human rights.
An expert on smartphone witnessing, new forms of mis/disinformation such as deepfakes, as well as innovations in preserving authenticity and evidence, he directs the overall programmatic vision of WITNESS and leads the Technology Threats and Opportunities program focused on early influence on emerging technologies that will impact the communities WITNESS serves.
He directs WITNESS's 'Prepare, Don't Panic' initiative which builds better globally-inclusive preparedness for malicious usages of synthetic media, including current work on deepfake and disinformation trends and responses, as well as emerging standards in authenticity infrastructure. He was a co-author on the Content Authenticity Initiative whitepaper and recently co-chaired the Threats and Harms Taskforce within the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA).
He has worked on impactful campaigns worldwide, and particularly in Latin America and Asia, and advocacy he has supported has contributed to changes in policy, practice and law. Quoted frequently in major media worldwide, he publishes on technology and human rights, has spoken at Davos and the White House, and was a 2010 Rockefeller Bellagio resident on the future of video in activism and a 2012-17 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Sam is on the Technology Advisory Board of the International Criminal Court, co-chaired the Partnership on AI’s Expert Group on AI and the Media and previously taught 2010-2018 the first graduate-level course on participatory media and human rights advocacy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
