Swiss Mission to the United Nations New York, 10 July 2012 Report on High-Level Dialogue with UN Member States on the status of the UN Crisis Information Management Strategy (CiMS) using inter alia social media tools, crisis mapping and crowdsourcing After the successful two day retreat on 11 and 12 June 2012 of the UN Crisis Information Management Advisory Group (CiMAG), consisting inter alia of OCHA, DPKO, DFS, UNFP, UNHCR, WFP, UNDP, Global Pulse, UNOSAT, OHCHR, organized by the UN ASG Chief Information Technology Officer (UN CITO) and the ICT4Peace Foundation, the Swiss Ambassador to the UN, Paul Seger hosted on 10 July 2012 a High-Level briefing luncheon for UN Member States. Participating countries were Ban...

Continue »

The report of the Crisis Information Management CiMAG Retreat, held from 10–12 June 2012 at Dolce Palisades, New York is now available. Please download a copy of it here. Big themes that emerged during the day included the dual use of technologies and best to create guidance notes and progressive policies regarding this (e.g. Big Data could be both very useful and lead to privacy nightmares and possibly even border on surveillance in less democratic regimes). It was also flagged that the sheer volume of data could, given the myriad of metrics collected for each customer on mobile networks, and user of web based social networks for example, lead to a high accuracy in determining personal information, including t...

Continue »

Sanjana Hattotuwa was invited by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the 3rd of July to deliver a presentation over Skype on how the field of crisis information management had changed in the last few years, as part of UNHCR's annual consultations with NGOs from around the world. Sanjana was asked by UNHCR to focus in particular on how new web and mobile based tools and platforms could aid in-country NGOs, who were partners of UNHCR. In response, Sanjana spoke about the evolution of social witnessing, and how the democratisation of tools and platforms related to information production, curation, dissemination, archival and visualisation had both in each sphere and combined, revolutionised the manner in...

Continue »

Organized by the Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) and Office of UN's Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO) Introduction The intersection of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), with the challenges of environmental, social and economic sustainability forms a critical nexus for the future of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Technology has long played a crucial part in economic and social development, and its evolution has continually raised the thresholds of possibility. In order to unleash the full potential of technology as an enabler for sustainable economic and social development throughout the developing world, a global strat...

Continue »

Daniel Stauffacher of ICT4Peace participated on 29 June 2012 in the Policy round table Risk and Crisis Communication and the new social media: Opportunities for international cooperation. This Panel was part of the JOINT OECD/International Risk Governance Council (IGRC) EXPERT WORKSHOP on Risk and Crisis Communication: Opportunities and Challenges of Social Media. The advent of social media has changed the way that people receive and disseminate information, and how they communicate with one another. Discussions at the High Level Risk Forum began to touch on some new applications of social media in risk and crisis communication, as well as some of the challenges. Governments are in the beginning phases of refining the...

Continue »

The Impact of New Technologies and ICTs on Sustainable Development Time: 11:30 - 13:00 Date: 18 Jun 2012 Room: T-5 Organising partners Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) Office of Information and Communications Technologies Introduction The intersection of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), with the challenges of environmental, social and economic sustainability forms a critical nexus for the future of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Technology has long played a crucial part in economic and social development, and its evolution has continually raised the thresholds of possibility. In order to unleash the full potential of technology as an enabler for sustain...

Continue »

Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor to the ICT4Peace Foundation, was the only Sri Lankan present at Google's Internet at Liberty 2012 conference held in Washington DC from 23 - 24 May. Well over 300 participants attended the conference, which featured plenary discussions as well as interesting workshops looking at the cutting edge of citizen journalism practices and tools, online safety and security for activists, new strategies in online activism, the sharing of information, knowledge and experience between activists from around the world leading social and political reform movements and research displays with highlighted some of the most interesting developments around the world on how ICTs were strengthening civil l...

Continue »

The ICT4Peace Foundation, infoDev, a global partnership of the World Bank, and ITU organised a well attended High-Level Dialogue and Thematic Workshop on “ICT for post-conflict reconstruction” during the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva on 16 May 2012. A lively question and answer session followed thought-provoking presentations by the distinguished panellists. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis on 18 November 2005 acknowledged the “potential of ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict” as well as their use in “post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction”. As noted in the announcement of the panel, ICTs are critical tools for fuelling post-conflict reco...

Continue »

ICT4Peace President Daniel Stauffacher was very pleased to meet with Commissioner Ms. Mignon Clyburn of the US Federal Telecommunications Commission during WSIS 2012 in Geneva. The bilateral meeting allowed explaining the genesis, objectives and activities of the ICT4Peace Foundation as well as discussing areas of common interest. Of particular interest was the past work of both organisations in supporting crisis management and humanitarian operations in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. The lessons learned from the Japan Tsunami, in terms of how ICTs, including social media, can help first responders and manage information better during crisis was discussed. Ms. Mignon and Daniel Stauffacher agreed to mainta...

Continue »

The ICT4Peace Foundation, infoDev, a global partnership of the World Bank, and ITU are organising a High-Level Dialogue and Thematic Workshop focusing on “ICT for post-conflict reconstruction” during the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva on 16 May 2012. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis on 18 November 2005, acknowledged the “potential of ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict” as well as their use in “post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction”. ICTs are critical tools for fueling post-conflict reconstruction: they can attract private investment, strengthen government operations, help civil society to re-build / build community networks a...

Continue »