Sensing and Shaping Emerging Conflicts Report of a Workshop by the National Academy of Engineering and United States Institute of Peace Roundtable on Technology, Science, and Peacebuilding (2013) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction and Themes
1 Introduction and Themes
Pages 1-10
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From page 1... ...
Rapid increases in the capabilities and availability of digital technologies have put powerful communications devices in the hands of most of the world's population. These technologies enable one-to-one and one-to-many flows of information, connecting people in conflict settings to individuals and groups outside those settings and, conversely, linking humanitarian organizations to people threatened by violence.
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, asked in his opening Box 1-1 Roundtable on Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding The Workshop on Sensing and Shaping Emerging Conflicts was the third of four workshops convened by the Roundtable on Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding. A joint initiative of the National Academy of Engineering and the US Institute of Peace, the roundtable consists of senior executives and experts from government agencies, universi ties, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
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Consideration of the roles that technologies can play in sensing and shaping emerging conflict is complicated by the great breadth of activities encompassed by both "technology" and "peacebuilding," said Lawrence Woocher, a research director at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and the other workshop cochair.
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From page 4... ...
At that time, two new technologies had just become available: the World Wide Web and civilian access to high-resolution satellite imagery. The Virtual Diplomacy initiative was designed to explore the degree to which these and other technologies could influence peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and early warning about conflicts.
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From page 5... ...
We cannot assume that only providing more timely, accurate, and locally actionable information will lead to better behaviors and outcomes. Technology has a vital role to play in addressing barriers to access and getting information to critical actors in a timely way, Woocher emphasized, but it can also be used for nefarious purposes.
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From page 6... ...
Sensing can help in this respect by bringing clarity to how certain or uncertain information is." 1 The workshop featured examples of several ITC technologies and their application to a class of peacebuilding problems related to sensing and shaping conflict. This summary, therefore, provides neither a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art, the gaps, and recommendations for technological research to fill those gaps, nor recommendations related to the application of particular technologies to specific problems in peacebuilding.
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From page 7... ...
For example, Woocher distinguished four phases as potential settings for peacebuilding: preconflict, midconflict, postconflict, and politi cal mobilization. And Chris Spence, chief technology officer at the National Democratic Institute, in his overview of election monitor ing, highlighted the value of concentrating on particular problem areas, such as export of election data, consolidation in the cloud and remote access, collection and representation of basic political data, and communication of results.
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From page 8... ...
Sharing is currently too one-sided, with government agencies -- especially the military -- capturing open source information but releasing very little of what they know or think to outsiders. Duncan Watts, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, and Patrick Meier, director of social innovation at Qatar Computing Research Institute, among others, emphasized the need not only to continually improve real-time maps but also to facilitate a shared and wider understanding of the insights provided by those maps through better communications and engagement.
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In some respects, the efforts by various governments to exert more political control over their citizens' Internet activities as much stems from fears of American dominance of cyberspace as from a desire to repress their own people." Rohozinski said that the creation of digital borders in cyberspace through economic or political mechanisms may be a foregone conclusion. Despite US companies' vital interest in the free flow of information across borders, international rules governing the Internet are being renegotiated and a number of nations are opting for much higher levels of regulation and control.
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Tipson cited Syrian activists who complain that Google's application of local standards of decency in deciding what to allow on YouTube inhibits their ability to display the brutality of the Assad regime.
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