Advancing the quality of technology used in conflict resolution
Project URL: howtobuildup.org
Project Twitter: @howtobuildup
Organisation URL: howtobuildpeace.org
Organisation Twitter: @howtobuildpeace
Build Up’s Build Peace is a new annual conference and online community that is dedicated to advancing the quality of technology used in conflict resolution. More than 250 people, from NGOs, INGOs, the UN, academia and the private sector from over 30 countries, attended its first event, which took place early in 2014 at the MIT’s Centre for Civic Media and Media Lab.
Delegates shared ideas and experiences about how data, communications, gaming and networking could refashion approaches to the three key stages of peace-building programmes: conflict analysis, programme design, and the monitoring and evaluation of impact. Short talks and working sessions explored other themes such as technology’s use in early warning and crisis response, advocacy, policymaking and collaboration. There were presentations from activists who were using technology to record the Rwanda tribunal, hack the border in the Dominican Republic, design Egypt’s constitution, and teach activist power in video games.
The biggest subject for discussion was the ways technology, through training, education, or storytelling, could bring about dialogue and understanding between communities to break entrenched patterns of violence in conflict zones.
Next year’s event is backed by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) Cyprus and will take place on 25–26 April 2015 in Nicosia, a city at the apex of Europe and the Middle East, and which is itself divided by a 40-year frozen conflict. Among the conference themes will be the tension between the power that technology gives grassroots activists to bring about change and the power it delivers to states in their use of digital surveillance.
Build Up is also coordinating and curating a global competition, funded by UNDP and United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, to promote games and apps for conflict resolution, called PEACEapp.
Image courtesy of Build Up
Last updated: 05th of September, 2014