Opening Date

2026-05-04

Closing Date

2026-05-17

The Civic Tech fellowship is aimed to bridge the gap between professionals with legal, tech and human rights background through working on a multi-disciplinary civic tech project with Sinar Project. Ideally in the long run, it is hoped that the selected Fellows will contribute and even lead communities to address the issues that formed their fellowship work.

Sinar Project is an award winning civic tech initiative using open technology, open data and policy analysis to systematically ensure important information is public by strengthening accessibility. Our internationally recognised work covers but is not limited to developing anti-corruption tools, data and investigative journalism and digital rights. Our work as one of the leading civic tech civil society organizations in Southeast Asia, addresses issues of Freedom of Expression (FOE) such as internet censorship through the innovative development and implementation of data and internet standards.

 Malaysia is currently in the midst of a critical juncture of the regulatory cycle to address issues and opportunities related to the application and impact of new and past technologies such as artificial intelligence, social media and data governance, impacting society in online and in physical spaces. New and existing laws and regulations are being pushed through at a rapid pace with limited input and discourse from civil society. At the moment, there are many civil society organizations and communities covering a range of civil and human rights issues in Malaysia, but not in digital and technological spaces. 

The Fellow will work for a duration of up to six (6) months and be paid up to MYR3,000 per month according to a payment and deliverables schedule to be agreed by both Sinar Project and the Fellow. 

The Fellow has a flexible schedule (i.e. full-time or part-time) is able to work remotely, as long as:-

a) they are able to attend online weekly stand-up meetings, 

b) be reasonably responsive on our Mattermost platform throughout the fellowship,

c) fulfill project deliverables which includes organizing a roundtable/stakeholder consultation,

d) participate in-person in certain events or meetings representing Sinar Project, especially if the event is related to their project (travel support subject to available funding). These can be events organized by other civil society members, tech conferences and workshops, or even consultations with government agencies. 

To apply, please fill in the following form by 17 May 2026. Female, minority candidates and marginalised communities are strongly encouraged to apply.

There will be 2 tracks: Legal & Human Rights and Tech. If shortlisted, the Fellow will discuss project ideas suitable to their interests and develop a project workplan together with us.  Do check out some of the activities done by our 2025 fellows to inspire your project proposal: AI Misuse on Creators , RightsCon 2025 Participation and Malaysian Hansard OKU Analytics Project. 

 

Track 1: Legal & Human Rights

 

The Fellow will work on a project that fulfill the following criteria:

• Addresses one of the issues related to emergence technology such as artificial intelligence, social media and data governance
• The project output will be available as open source on Sinar Project’s repository on GitHub
• The project output will be presented to their network related to their background (e.g. lawyers/ human rights organization). This can be done online or in-person subject to available funding.

Illustrative ideas:

• A guidebook on what to prepare or be aware of in case of confiscation of digital devices during an arrest
• Build an open-source database of cases related to human rights/ gender/ Islamic law
• Build an open-source database of harms related to artificial intelligence
• Analyze open-source data such as OONI (internet censorship) or Measurement Lab (internet speed) and produce a technical report
• Analyze essential mobile apps in Malaysia such as government and e-wallet apps using tools like JANUS and/or Exodus Privacy
• Review gaps and deficiencies in existing laws in protection of civil rights and privacy in digital space
• Proposed guidelines for intellectual property reform for synthetic and AI generated works that protect creatives while ensuring protections for free speech and innovations in research and development
• Test a free self-hosted application in Sinar Project’s server to be used as a shared service in your current CSO or community and provide a report of findings. For example, shared file service (NextCloud, Cryptpad, etc.), Jitsi (video conferencing tool), communication platform like Mattermost, social media like Mastodon
• Conduct a data asset mapping of your current CSO where the process is documented to be used for other CSOs

Note: While some ideas may need a higher level of technical knowledge compared to other projects, we would favour an interest/inclination to these ideas despite lack of the technical knowledge, as the Fellow would be supported by Sinar Project .

Qualifications and Experience

• Malaysian
• Has a legal or human rights background 
• Ideally have at least 1 year of experience as a practicing lawyer (including pupillage or internship at a legal firm) or as part of a human rights organization
• Interested in the work of digital rights
• Independent and self-motivated; capable of learning new and challenging technical knowledge

 

Track 2: Tech

 

The Fellow will work on a project that fulfill the following criteria:

• Addresses one of the issues related to emergent technology such as artificial intelligence, social media and data governance; or key civic tech solution for civil society
• The project output will be available as open source on Sinar Project’s repository on GitHub
• The project output will be presented to their network related to their background (e.g. Pycon, developers). This can be done online or in-person subject to available funding.

Illustrative ideas:

• Work together with a civil society group (e.g. child rights group) to improve existing data collection mechanisms
• Address accessibility issues on Sinar’s website while documenting them. If possible, add a continuous monitoring mechanism.
• Implement FixMyStreet service for selected local councils, including public API services for geolocation to administrative boundary lookup 
• Convert government/parliament documents into machine readable format using paperless-ngx and open data standards
• Adapt and develop human rights violations and incident online monitoring database (can be built on an existing open source project)
• Front-end development of Sinar Project’s websites hosted through the Plone CMS
• Upstream support in core AI/NLP libraries for Bahasa Melayu (my_ms)
• Add security or devops features to Sinar Projects repository
• Research and add AI tooling code/harness improvements to Sinar’s repository with AGENTS.md &  SKILLS.md  
• Data research and tools for anti-corruption and transparency using open data standards for PEPs and Beneficial Ownership
• Implement and develop a searchable online public documents archive and library (can be built on an existing open source project)

Qualifications and Experience

• Malaysian
• Extensive experience in Python and/or front-end development (HTML and CSS)
• Provide code samples and/ or GitHub profile in the application form
• Have experience and be comfortable with others reviewing your code and design; have experience and be comfortable reviewing others' code.
• Interested in the work of digital rights
• Independent and self-motivated
• Capable and willing to communicate difficult technical terms into understandable laymen language both in verbal and written