Build Peace 2016

Involved in the conference since the first time it was held at MIT in Boston in 2013, the ICT4Peace Foundation is pleased to be the host of Build Peace 2016 at ETH, Zurich, Switzerland from 9 – 11 September 2016.

Registration and speaker applications are now open! Click here for more information and to sign up.

Build Peace is a community that brings together practitioners, activists and technologists from around the world to share experience and ideas on using technology for peacebuilding and conflict transformation. 250 people gather annually at the Build Peace conferences, which have to date been held in Boston (2014, hosted by the MIT Media Lab) and Nicosia (2015, hosted by UNDP). Participants come from as many as 60 different countries, working in national and international NGOs, the UN system, academic institutions, civil society organisations, grassroots organizing and the private sector.

The main theme for 2016 will be: Peace through technology: towards transformation. In 2014, we asked what technology could do in four areas: information, communications, networks and games. In 2015, we focused on by whom and for whom technology is used to build peace, looking specifically at questions of empowerment, behavior change and impact. In 2016, we propose to ask why we use technology to build peace. What and who are we trying to change? Where are the levers of change in society that technology can affect? What questions should we be asking as we engage in or with a conflict? What vectors of conflict transformation can technology best support? What ethical paradigms should guide our actions in using technology? Conflict does not need to be managed or resolved, rather it must be transformed away from violence and destruction and towards constructive change. Within this main theme of transformation, we identify three areas of inquiry: political transformation, socio-cultural transformation and ethics.

More details around keynote speakers and agenda will follow in the months to come.