Human Rights Foundation and Maven Announce Digital Media Network Partnership

Thor Halvorssen, Human Rights Foundation (Photo: Business Wire)

OSLO, Norway--()--Human Rights Foundation (HRF), led by Thor Halvorssen, will be joining Maven’s coalition of dozens of award-winning journalists, best-selling authors, top analysts, global causes, foundations and community leaders on a single digital media platform of independent channels. HRF’s new channel will go live during the annual Oslo Freedom Forum taking place in Norway next week.

The Maven’s network debut, in preview form, will be May 17, coinciding with its two-day channel partner conference in Seattle.

“Since our inception 10 years ago, we have worked to raise awareness about freedom, where it’s most at risk around the world. Our new partnership with Maven will help us share our work with a much broader audience,” said Halvorssen, HRF founder and CEO.

“Our goal is to recruit individuals to help build a global movement to promote and protect individual rights in closed societies,” added Halvorssen, who founded HRF after his mother was shot during a political protest in Venezuela. "Maven is offering us a platform to empower journalists, policy makers, democracy activists, philanthropists and dissidents to digitally share ideas on how to reverse the decline of freedom in today’s world. More than half of the world's population lives under authoritarian rule and information is the best way for us to shift that balance. With Maven, distribution of that information will be faster and richer than ever before. We are thrilled to partner with Maven’s distinguished digital media pioneers and grateful they have offered their skills and resources at our disposal."

Maven CEO James Heckman said, “The Human Rights Foundation is passionately devoted to exposing and confronting the world’s worst dictatorships and we are committed to helping them in the fight. HRF made it their mission to represent those with no voice, and our goal is to amplify that voice -- exponentially and without restriction.

“We couldn’t be more inspired by what Thor Halvorssen is building and so we’ve chosen, as a team, to make HRF's platform our top priority. We are building a boutique network to empower the best, brightest and most passionate leaders in a variety of arenas, and HRF and Thor’s work exemplify everything we stand for.”

Halvorssen is a Venezuelan-born human rights advocate and film producer described by The New York Times as “a champion of the underdog and the powerless.” He has lectured at universities across the world on matters of freedom, and his opinions and views have appeared in numerous venues, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, CNN, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The BBC, Foreign Policy, National Public Radio, National Review, MSNBC, TIME, and many others. HRF (hrf.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. HRF is known for its efforts to inform leaders, experts, intellectuals, and the general public about how best to promote freedom.

Since its founding, HRF has secured the release of political prisoners; established the Oslo Freedom Forum conference series; connected technologists and entrepreneurs with activists; launched campaigns like Flash Drives for Freedom, Real Russia Today, and Disrupt North Korea; challenged the PR machinery of repressive regimes; distributed human rights guides inside dictatorships; slammed celebrities and corporations for supporting human rights violators; submitted amicus briefs in major international human rights cases and published hundreds of reports on individual rights. The Maven partnership is intended to accelerate and amplify their missions.

Maven is an expert-driven, group media network, whose state-of-the-art platform serves, by invitation-only, a coalition of professional, independent channel partners. By providing broader distribution, greater community engagement and efficient advertising and membership programs, Maven enables partners to focus on the key drivers of their business: creating, informing, sharing, discovering, leading and interacting with the communities and constituencies they serve. For more information, visit themaven.net.

Based in Seattle, Maven is publicly traded under the ticker symbol MVEN. The executive team and operational board members include digital media pioneers James Heckman and Ross Levinsohn with technology innovators Bill Sornsin and Ben Joldersma.

Contacts

Maven
Gretchen Bakamis, 206-715-6660

Release Summary

Human Rights Foundation and Maven announce digital media network partnership

Contacts

Maven
Gretchen Bakamis, 206-715-6660