technology for peace - ideas from the trenches

TECHNOLOGY FOR PEACE: IDEAS FROM THE TRENCHES

Sanjana Hattotuwa

Sri Lanka

Conflict transformation

A process of engaging with and transforming relationships, interests, discourses and, if necessary, the very constitution of society that supports the continuation of violent conflict

CT cautions against too much of confidence in to agreements

Conflict can never be resolved, but it can be transformed negotiate differences non-violently

ICT and conflict transformation

Conflict Transformati

on

“Satisficing”

Culturally appropriate

and sustainable

Mobiles as well as PCs

Open Standars

Interoperable

Online + Offline

ICT4Peace?

“We value the potential of ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict which, inter alia, negatively affects achieving development goals. ICTs can be used for identifying conflict situations through early-warning systems preventing conflicts, promoting their peaceful resolution, supporting humanitarian action, including protection of civilians in armed conflicts, facilitating peacekeeping missions, and assisting post conflict peace-building and reconstruction.”

Paragraph 36, WSIS Tunis Commitment, 2005

My work in Sri Lanka

Writing from 2001, working actively from 2003

Set up InfoShare in 2003 – only one of its kind in Sri Lanka

Applied research – technology that works, not just promises

Real life scenarios Imagining solutions and pushing the art

of the possible

Scenario

Grassroots organisation with big staff turnover Limited Human, Financial and Technical

resources Website launched but not updated You need to communicate your work You need to communicate your community’s

ideas and aspirations / possible engender them Apathetic and unreliable traditional media

coverage Violent context

The hardware

Connectivity – Wireless Broadband

Planning for content

Think strategically – knowledge expands exponentially

Text, photos, audio and video complement each other

Who are your primary and secondary audiences?

Who are your content producers? What media do the above use?

Web 2.0

Wikipedia and Facebook are prime examples

User generated content “In 2006, the World Wide Web became a

tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.” – Time Magazine

Interactive, community based, conversational spaces

Two way communications

Facebook – For personal usehttp://www.facebook.com

Facebook – For campaignshttp://www.facebook.com

VOIP

Voice over Internet Protocol / Voice over IP Gives ulcers, migraines and reduces life

expectancy of traditional telecoms executives Free PC to PC anywhere in the world anytime Cheap international dialing rates for fixed and

mobile phones Call conferencing Easy recording for podcasts / Great for

interviews

Skypehttp://www.skype.com

Skypecasts – Community conversations

Call recorders for Skype

You can use any of these programme to easily create a recording of your conversation, which you can upload to the web and create a podcast with ease.

Podcasts

Audio broadcast available on the Web to the public for free downloading to a personal computer or a digital audio player.

Podcast recording

Audacity for Windows XP / Vista / Mac / Linux

Quicktime 8 for Mac

Publishing a podcasthttp://ourmedia.org

YouTubehttp://www.youtube.com

Flickr

Use the tools in your OS

Microsoft Office Picture Manager

iPhoto on the Mac

Basics the same as high end software

Easy to use

Use the tools in your OS

Windows Movie Maker on the PC iMovie on the Mac

Google Mapshttp://www.ushahidi.com/

Blogs

Can you send an email with an attachment? Then you can blog!

Shortened form of the phrase “Web log”

Like a diary or journal, but online. No coding knowledge necessary.

Easily link to other blogs, create local and international campaigns, by-pass traditional media and potential have greater reach, can include multimedia

Well over 70 million – the new Guttenberg of the web.

Blogs

Writing a post

Blogs – Typical features

Comments on posts Trackbacks (a way through which you are

alerted when others link to your posts) Categories / Sections Archives Blogroll (a list of other blogs you find

interesting or deal with similar issues)

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, which is a great name because the concept is just that: Really simple.

It allows you to subscribe to an information feed that gets delivered directly to your RSS reader or Web browser.

So instead of visiting several different Web pages each day or performing the same Web searches over and over, you can set up RSS feeds to do it for you.

Google Readerhttp://reader.google.com

Instant Messaging

Use MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, Google Chat to coordinate and collaborate

Saves on emails Bounce off quick ideas Quickly plan for action Share small files quicker

Twitter

Twitter.com

Mobiles

In everyone’s hands

Persistent – Messages can be stored, forwarded

Cheaper to buy than a PC

Web integration (mobile > Twitter > RSS)

Great for community campaigns. Can complement other media strategies for national level campaigns.

Citizen journalism – Everyone is a witness!

FrontlineSMS.com

1. It has been conceived, designed and written with NGOs in mind

2. The system can be used for internal staff-based communications, or to provide information to local communities via a sign-up process, or both.

3. Field-based NGOs can keep in touch with their fieldworkers from anywhere in the field.

Mobileactive.org

1. Using Mobile Phones in Electoral and Voter Registration Campaigns

2. Using Mobile Phones in Advocacy Campaigns3. Mobile Phones in Fundraising Campaigns

Google Apps

Government can’t easily shut down or block

Robust, reliable, pervasive, platform agnostic

Group calendaring, instant messaging, document creation and archives, wikis, webpages, email lists and email services, online and offline access

This I believehttp://www.thisibelieve.org

Conversations with historyhttp://www.uctv.tv/cwh/

Insight on conflicthttp://www.insightonconflict.org/

Groundviewshttp://www.groundviews.org

Groundviewshttp://www.groundviews.org

Oral histories – VOR Radio

My personal bias

Ideas

Ask people to send in ideas for peace on pre-paid forms (through post) printed inside toothpaste, shampoo, soap, washing powder, milk power cartons and packages – which target females in households who may not necessarily otherwise engage in peace related dialogues. Scan or capture feedback and post it on website.

A website that counts down to a million “voices” in support of peace – people call in to a toll-free hotline from any mobile or landline to answer a) what does peace mean to you b) how will you work towards strengthen that which you outlined in (a) – in three minutes or less.

Ideas

Collaborate with projects such as www.witness.org that use digital media to record human rights violations

Mobile phone based “swarming” –get your community together quickly to a spot to stand up for something

Capture ideas for peace through mobiles (competitions for best 5 word idea for peace via SMS)

Thank you!

sanjana@info-share.org

http://ict4peace.wordpress.com http://sanjanah.wordpress.com