by Christopher Radler After having been rather illiterate in the field of Social Media and the huge potential it offers, and only being able to receive a first glimpse through an online course conducted by the TechChange Institute for Technology and Social Change, I was delighted when the German Center for International Peace Operations, in close cooperation with various other organizations, thereunder the ICT4Peace Foundation offered a Crisis Information Management (CIM) course in Nairobi, Kenya. Amongst the various CIM tools covered by the course was also the use of Social Media. Hence, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to deepen my knowledge in that particular field. The ICT4Peace, represented by Mr Sa...

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The ICT4Peace Foundation carefully curates a collection of unique and widely acclaimed wikis geared towards the humanitarian aid community as well as media and policy makers. They feature vital information from government, the UN system in the disaster / crisis stricken area, other NGOs, the World Bank, comprehensive situation reports, mapping information and GIS data, photos, video, who/what/where information and links to domestic and international media coverage. Each CiM wiki usually features, inter alia, Background information, including any UN operations Key UN contacts Key situation reports, including from UN OCHA A plethora of carefully curated Twitter feeds and other social media updates in Engli...

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Member of the ICT4Peace Foundation's Advisory Board, Egyptian digital activist, blogger, and WACC member Kamal Sedra will lead the webinar about how social media has influenced—and is influencing—the Egyptian political landscape. Based in Cairo, Mr. Sedra founded and manages DISC Development, an organization that works in the fields of Human Rights and Freedom of Expression, and provides technical support for other civil society actors. Mr. Sedra also serves as a Senior Technical Advisor for ICT4Peace Foundation, a Swiss NGO that supports global peace through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). He is a well-known digital activist, blogger, and digital media consultant, having served as a trainer...

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Dear colleagues and friends, While 2011 was the year marked by the Arab Awakening and increasing awareness of ICTs for peace building, protection of human dignity and crisis management, in 2012 academia and think tanks started to analyse in more detail what happened and what the real contributions by ICTs in these instances were. The overall conclusion remains that ICTs has been changing how today societies function, especially in crisis, but that more research on the causality between ICTs and social and political outcomes is required. ICT4Peace has co-organized and participated in several events and processes in this field with Universities and international organisations, including the United Nations in addition ...

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Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze (ZIF) and ICT4Peace Foundation announce the new Crisis Information Management Training Course at the International Peace Support Training Center (IPSTC), Nairobi from 23 February to 3 March 2013. The Course will teach Information Management practices in Crisis, including Peace and Humanitarian Operations. A special focus will be given to the use of new Media, including SMS, Twitter, crowd sourcing and crisis mapping to obtain manage and share data. This Course is also linked to the UN Crisis Information Management Strategy Implementation. For more information, click on the image below. Course Description Efficient and timely ...

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Image courtesy TechChange ICT4Peace’s Daniel Stauffacher participated in a Symposium at Harvard University (6-8 December 2012) on “Internet-Driven Developments: Structural Changes and Tipping Points”, co-hosted by the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society in Berlin, the Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore, the Center for Technology & Society at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, KEIO University SFC, the MIT Media Lab and its Center for Civic Media, the NEXA Center for Internet & Society. The participants deliberations centred around the following two questions: What are the structural shifts (as opposed to hype, fa...

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Image courtesy chinamil.com.cn/Zhang Zhe Daniel Stauffacher, President of ICT4Peace participated in the Fourth Xiangshan Forum (Beijing, 16 to 18 November 2012) entitled “Asia-Pacific Security: New Issues and New Ideas”. The aim of the Forum was to provide a "high-level academic platform for leaders and senior scholars from world-renowned security-defense think tanks to exchange ideas on hot issues concerning global and Asia-Pacific security and defense, and to explore approaches to cooperation and dialogue among these think tanks". In particular, Daniel Stauffacher was invited to co-chair a working group, called: "New Areas in Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation: Space Security and Cyber Security". He called...

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Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law together with the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and Google.org, convened a two-day workshop to advance strategic thinking on how to leverage new technologies to strengthen U.N. human rights monitoring around the world. Bringing together a small group of United Nations Human Rights Council mandate-holders, leading civil society activists, government representatives, and technologists working at the intersection of technology and human rights, the workshop developed concrete proposals for how technology platforms can be used to amplify the voices of mandate-holders, broaden their engagement with activists and citiz...

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Dr. Eneken Tikk and Amb. Paul Meyer participated for ICT4Peace in the Budapest Conference on Cyberspace 2012 on 4 and 5 October 2012. The Budapest Conference is part of a series of international conferences on critical issues and global challenges in the cyberspace, that started in October 2011 in London and will continue in Korea in 2013. The rationale for the Budapest Conference was as follows: "In two decades, cyberspace has become fundamental to our societies, to the national and global economies, to international relations. It is also a potential domain for conflict. Many States are incorporating cyber capabilities into their militaries. Non-state actors are developing capabilities that can be used for their...

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Kamal Sedra, Senior Advisor of the ICT4Peace Foundation participated in the panel on Digital Culture and Information Society at the ICT4All Forum organized by the Government of Tunisia. Kamal Sedra was also ICT4Peace's key advisor for the first elections since the revolution in Tunisia on 23 October 2011. In that capacity he helped the “Higher Independent Election Committee” or “Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Elections” (ISIE) to put in place the online election monitoring platform: “Carte de Controle du Processus Electorale“.

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