The ICT4Peace Foundation is pleased to inform you about its most recent paper entitled The potential and challenges of open data for crisis information management and aid efficiency: A preliminary assessment. The authors, Daniel Stauffacher, Sanjana Hattotuwa and Barbara Weekes of the ICT4Peace Foundation, aim to explore both the strengths and potential challenges of open data for crisis information management, crisis response and aid efficiency. Access to data or information translates into empowerment; power to make informed decisions, to solve problems, to generate economic activity, to improve living standards and, in the case of humanitarian emergencies, to protect and save lives. The integral value and m...

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Representing the ICT4Peace Foundation, Sanjana Hattotuwa participated and lectured in Information and Intelligence Cooperation in Multifunctional International Operations, a course run by the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sandö - Stockholm. Participants included high ranking officials from government, NGOs, UN and EU peacekeeping operations and MACs, analysts and information managers. As FBA notes, The aim of this course is to develop and improve cooperation and sharing of information and intelligence in multifunctional missions by giving senior officers and professionals involved in or designated to work in multifunctional operations the ability to build functional networks and systems for collection, analysis and...

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The Ushahidi blog features a guest post by Alex Mayyasi, a graduate of Stanford University's International Relations program, class of 2011, living in Cairo, Egypt on the use of the mapping platform during Egypt's 2011-2012 parliamentary elections. It notes, Our most common verification strategies were to corroborate reports by checking online news, looking at attached photos or videos, asking our local volunteers to investigate personally or through their local contacts, or contacting the sender. We had an additional team on the ground that could travel to investigate and verify reports of large-scale fraud. Our verification volunteers also had two additional trainings. First, they learned how to use ICT4Peace’s...

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The ICT4Peace Foundation is proud to announce the signing of an MOU with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) of Sweden. The parties have agreed to cooperate in the furtherance of training and capacity building in the field of crisis information management for peace support operations. One of the priority projects is the development and testing of a JMAC - CiM training course at African Training Institutions including using ICTs and new media as tools for information collection, analysis and dissemination. This project is part of the work of a consortium lead by ICT4Peace together with the The Cairo Regional Center for Training on Conflict Resolution and Peacekeeping in Africa (CCCPA), Zentrum für Internationale Friedense...

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On 22 December 2011, ICT4Peace's Daniel Stauffacher adressed over 60 Swiss Parliamentarians, Senior Government Officials and ICT Business Representatives in Bern Switzerland at a dinner organised by the pro Open Government Data Parliamentary Group called "Digitale Nachhaltigkeit", on the potential of Open Government Data for Crisis Information Management and Aid efficiency. In his presentation he referred to important recent initiatives such as Open Government Partnership (http://www.opengovpartnership.org/) of 8 founding countries lead by Bresil and the United States and 43 additional countries. The Open Government Partnership is a new multilateral initiative launched on 20 September 2011 that aims to secure c...

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Along with Delilah H.A. Al Khudhairy from the EU's JRC, Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation delivered the keynote address at the 2011 International Network of Crisis Mappers, held in Geneva from 14-15 November, 2011. The ICCM network now features the video of this keynote on YouTube.

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In this latest paper by the ICT4Peace Foundation, the authors have called for a non-binding code of conduct to strengthen cyber-security and mitigate the threat of growing cyber-security threats. The paper is a substantive basis for the call issued by the authors in an op-ed in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 6 July 2011, for such a non-binding code of conduct. The paper describes also some recent developments in 2011 that took place at the policy-making level at the United Nations and important conferences in London and Berlin in the Fall of 2011. Download the report as a PDF here or view it online here.

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