Our free online seminar series is suitable for all - students, practitioners, tech companies, researchers, lecturers and anyone else with an interest. Each event explores a single peacetech theme with presentations from both tech and peacebuilding perspectives. The core focus is interdisciplinary, building understanding and skills between the peacebuilding and tech worlds. All contributions and insights are valuable, so we'd love to see you there!
Winter 2024/2025
Series 1 – Building bridges in virtual spaces
Convenor - David Curran, University of Coventry
Three seminars that examine the use of front-of-field tech as a tool to identifying areas of consensus between different groups in polarised contexts. How are online tools with generative AI capabilities being used at local and national levels? Presenters offer real-life examples of how these tools are being used for peacebuilding and dialogue, as well as the dilemmas they throw up.
The next steps of peace - polling in divided societies
(December 2024)
Dr Colin Irwin, expert on public opinion, public diplomacy and peace processes, on working with tech specialists to build and institutionalise peace.
Understanding Polis: an online tool to find consensus
(February 2025)
Shannon Y Hong of OpenFuture presented on the potential and challenge of Polis, a virtual tool for peacebuilding. Shannon's great talk shared six case studies of how and where Polis is being used to develop dialogue in situations ranging from the domestic (Uber, community building) to international settings. Related links:
- 1. Paper on vTaiwan: An Empirical Study of Open Consultation Process in Taiwan
- 2. Audrey Tang’s talk on the Uber and Airbnb Deliberations
- 3. Paper on the Klimarat: Creating an online conversation between a nation and a mini-public: a case study on Polis & the Austrian Citizens’ Climate Council
- 4. Bowling Green Report
- 5. Anthropic Report.
Protracted Divides: building bridges in virtual spaces
(March 4th, 2025, 4-5pm UK time)
Join us online on March 4th, 2025 for the last seminar in this series - a discussion on applying the tech in our own contexts. In discussion with participants, we will be looking back at the last two talks from Colin Irwin and Shannon Y Hong to develop some of the important points that they raised. These include digital literacy for peacebuilders; the knotty question of process design; and the implications for how these tech tools can be employed to their best effect in longterm peacebuilding work. This session will be recorded, and be used as the base for a co-authored article on human to tech interaction in the peacebuilding world.
