Google Ideas, in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations and Gen Next Foundation, hosted the Conflict in a Connected World summit in New York from 20 – 22 October 2013. Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor to the ICT4Peace Foundation, was invited by Google to take part in the conference.

Through a series of panels, presentations, and your participation in one of a number of labs, the Summit looked at,

  • exposing current online threats
  • contemplating future trends, and
  • bring attentioning to tools and approaches designed to empower people in the face of conflict or repression

Sanjana took part in a working group that met over lunch for around 2 hours on each day, to use human centred design approaches and thinking to the challenge of activist security in online, mobile and Internet fora. Sanjana was able to contribute to the discussion using a wealth of experience in supporting the digital security of activists during and after the war in Sri Lanka, around issues of accountability, human rights violations and over the wire / on disk encryption tools and techniques. Participants at the workshop mapped out some of the global, conceptual challenges around security in this domain, and over the course of two days drilled down into how exactly digital security could be enhanced for those in the field in particular, during violent conflict.