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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
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Appendix A

Agenda

NAE-USIP Roundtable: Workshop on Sensing andShaping Emerging Conflicts

October 11, 2012

National Academy of Sciences
2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Room 120
Washington, DC

The Objective of this Workshop is to identify major opportunities and impediments to providing better real-time information to actors directly involved in situations that could lead to deadly violence. We will consider several scenarios of potential violence drawn from recent country cases, and consider a set of technologies, applications, and strategies that have been particularly useful—or could be, if better adapted for conflict prevention or mitigation by people in a position to do so.

AGENDA

8:30 a.m. Breakfast
 
8:45 a.m. Roundtable Charge to the Workshop
By the end of the day, we seek to identify promising strategies for direct application of technology tools and techniques to emerging conflicts. The goal is to provide insights and information to inform the design of field tests of collaboration between local actors, supportive peacebuilders, and expert technologists to increase the constructive impacts of sensing technologies and applications.
Roundtable Advisor: Fred Tipson, USIP
 
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
9:00 a.m. “Peacebuilders” Meet “Data Scientists”
How can various sensing technologies assist local populations and peacebuilders in zones of conflict or potential conflict to anticipate, understand, and prevent deadly violence?
 
Candidate Peacebuilding Problems/Settings
Joint Presentation: Lawrence Woocher, SAIC
Dennis King, State Department
Fred Tipson, USIP
Candidate Technologies:
Joint Presentation: Prabhakar Raghavan, Google
Duncan Watts, Microsoft
Patrick Vinck, Harvard Humanitarian
Initiative
10:30 a.m. Break
 
10:45 a.m. Recent Experience in Zones of Tension/Conflict
How was technology used by local actors, whether citizens, government agencies, or outsiders, to understand their situations and influence the outcomes of events?
Speakers: Patrick Meier, Ushahidi (Kenya)
Sanjana Hattotuwa, ICT4Peace
(Sri Lanka)
Moderator: Lawrence Woocher, SAIC
 
12:15 p.m. Lunch and PeaceTech Lab Presentation
Speaker: Sheldon Himelfarb, USIP
 
1:00 p.m. Factors Affecting the Use of Technologies in Conflict Settings
What is the process, whether facilitated or not by outsiders, by which technologies are adopted/adapted in local settings?
What are the challenges these capabilities could best address?
Speakers: Chris Spence, National Democratic
Institute
Emmanuel Letouzé, UN Global Pulse
Commentator: Joseph Bock, University of Notre Dame
Moderator: Prabhakar Raghavan, Google
 
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
2:30 p.m. Break
 
2:45 p.m. The Darker Side of Technologies Used to Sense Conflict
For all of the potential benefits of various technologies in facilitating political participation and change, various actors may take advantage of these very capabilities to repress change and even provoke deadly violence. What are the ways that repressive governments or reactionary groups have exploited technologies (or might do so) to stifle expression or target activists, and how can these “darker” uses be prevented or mitigated?
Speakers: Ivan Sigal, Global Voices
Rafal Rohozinski, The SecDev Group
Moderator: Lawrence Woocher, SAIC
 
4:15 p.m. Next Steps
 
5:00 p.m. Adjourn
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
Page 51
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
Page 52
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
Page 53
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Agenda." National Academy of Engineering. 2013. 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. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18349.
×
Page 54
Next: Appendix B: Attendees »
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Technology has revolutionized many aspects of modern life, from how businesses operate, to how people get information, to how countries wage war. Certain technologies in particular, including not only cell phones and the Internet but also satellites, drones, and sensors of various kinds, are transforming the work of mitigating conflict and building peaceful societies. 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. Communications within groups have also intensified and diversified as the group members use new technologies to exchange text, images, video, and audio. Monitoring and analysis of the flow and content of this information can yield insights into how violence can be prevented or mitigated. In this way technologies and the resulting information can be used to detect and analyze, or sense, impending conflict or developments in ongoing conflict.

On October 11, 2012, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) held a workshop in Washington, DC, to identify "major opportunities and impediments to providing better real-time information to actors directly involved in situations that could lead to deadly violence." The workshop brought together experts in technology, experts in peacebuilding, and people who have worked at the intersections of those two fields on the applications of technology in conflict settings, to consider uses of technology to sense emerging and ongoing conflicts and provide information and analyses that can be used to prevent violent and deadly conflict. Sensing and Shaping Emerging Conflicts: Report of a Joint Workshop of the National Academy of Engineering and the United States Institute of Peace: Roundtable on Technology, Science, and Peacebuilding summarizes the workshop.

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