Digital Inclusion & Women in Disabilities: Launch of National Report & Panel Discussion

Beatrice Leong (AIDA) is a Malaysian gender-disability activist, autistic woman, and independent documentary filmmaker whose advocacy is grounded in her lived experiences of psychiatric misdiagnosis, institutionalisation, and coerced Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). Diagnosed with autism later in life, she uses her work to challenge the systems that fail disabled people, especially women and girls. She advocates strongly for structural change rooted in rights, autonomy, and dignity. Harnessing her experience across media, advocacy, and policy, Beatrice uses storytelling to make visible what is often silenced, creating space for others to be heard on their own terms. Her filmmaking and activism confront the realities of exclusion while building new ways of understanding disability beyond stereotypes or saviour narratives.

Alongside her filmmaking and advocacy, Beatrice brings her voice to spaces where it has long been missing. She speaks across sectors from grassroots collectives to international institutions as someone who interrogates power, policy, and the lived costs of exclusion. Known for her clarity and refusal to soften uncomfortable truths, Beatrice delivers keynotes, panels, and workshops that push beyond inspiration to structural critique. She had recently been appointed to the Majlis Kebangsaan Bagi Orang Kurang Upaya (National Council for Persons with Disabilities) for the term 2025-2027, becoming the first appointee to represent women and girls with hidden disabilities—a long-overdue recognition of the invisibilised lives she has long fought to centre.

Dr Benjamin YH Loh is a lecturer at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He is a media scholar who employs digital ethnography in studying emergent cultures and the digital public sphere. He received his PhD in communications and new media from the National University of Singapore, and works on the confluence between technology and society, with a particular focus on minority and marginalised communities. His works include co-edited books “Sabah from the Ground: The 2020 Elections and the Politics of Survival” (ISEAS/SIRD 2021) with Bridget Welsh and Vilashini Somiah, and “New Media in the Margins: Lived Realities and Experiences from the Malaysian Peripheries” (Palgrave 2023) with James Chin. He regularly publishes Op-Eds with Malaysiakini, The Vibes, SCMP and Nikkei Asia Review and shares his thoughts on Twitter (@ThatBenLoh). He was also a former Visiting Fellow at the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute where he has published articles on digital issues within Malaysia.

Attendance is free via registration.