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Technology Initiatives for Peace - Vision
 “Peace
is not the goal, peace is the way” – reads a poster in
the
hallway of this convention center. How do get on that
pathway? How do we find the way? If you ask an economist, he
would show us an economic pathway to peace. If we ask men of
law, they would show us through legal means. If you ask an
educator, she would point to education. If you ask a
religious leader, he would point to religion. I am none of
the above. I am a technologist. If you ask me the way that
is peaceful and the way that is peace, I would show you a
technological path.
What if our culture was
guided by peace and nonviolence as our leading values and
new technologies were developed to support those values?
What if we had
entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, investors,
universities and laboratories working together to support
technology initiatives for peace?
What if you, as a person
committed to peace and prosperity for all people, could find
your life work would support that commitment?
What if we could achieve a
massive shift of consciousness so we could support diversity
and harmony through technology?
What if we achieved
spiritual growth in our work life, our family life and our
social life and the technology supported that?
How do such dreams
become reality?
Let us come together to steer
technology to achieve this dream.
“And there is no dispute
that war was the original motivation and has been the
continuing source of support for the development of computer
technology.”
”If it is true that the
personal computer started out as an aid to ballistic
calculations, it is also true that a population equipped
with low-cost, high-power computers and access to
self-organizing distributed networks has in its hands a
potentially powerful defense against any centrally organized
technological tyranny.”
”It is up to us to decide
whether or not computers will be our masters, our servants,
or our partners.
”And the deciding must
be shared by as many citizens as possible, not just the
experts. In that sense, the most important factor in whether
we will all see the dawn of a humane, sustainable world in
the twenty-first century will be how we deal with these
machines a few of us thought up and a lot of us will be
using.”
from Tools for Thought
by Howard Rheingold
A recently made streaming video by Italian
Telecomm won the Epica award for creative
achievement. View a video of What if Gandhi could
have communicated like this?
http://www.epica-awards.com/assets/epica/2004/winners/film/flv/11071.htm
It is said that Gandhi accomplished his work
by writing 40+ letters in the mornings before regular work
started. He lived in era where there was no email. And he
mobilized millions with little technology.
It is a moving and compelling testament to
how much technologies of connectivity and communication have
changed the world and how much is made possible. The film
starts out with Gandhi (actual historical clip) walking into
his hut in Sabarmati. It then, cuts over to his face talking
to people about one world, uplift for all. We see soldiers
in WW2 looking at his talk on television, a couple in Italy
sitting on a park bench and viewing it on their cellphone,
people gathered in Moscow looking at it in big screen,
executives looking at it on their desktops in London and in
New York, trains screaming through wilderness of Canada and
native Indians viewing his talk on a laptop. It paints a
compelling and redeeming vision of what is possible with
technology when it is applied to peaceful purposes. The tag
line is “Imagine the world today if he could have
communicated like this.”
Technology Initiatives
for Peace - Introduction
In the
last 70 years or 100 years, there has been a lot of
advancement in the areas of technology (communication,
computation, transportation, medicine, ecology) During that
time the war machine has enslaved much of the technology -
resulting in nuclear missiles, precision guided bombs,
faster than sound planes, night vision, geographical
positioning systems, satellite based communication and CBCW
and WMD). The list is endless.
The
peace movement can bring itself up to date and begin to
embrace these advanced technologies. That would be not
enough. We need to channel innovation and
entrepreneurship, and breakthrough technologies to the cause
of peace and sustainable development. There are numerous
examples of the peace movement and nonviolent action
utilizing technologies (fax machines in the 80s,
Internet and email in the nineties) - but most are
serendipitous.
Time has come to DRIVE new technologies.
Exercise in history of
technology
Technology Initiatives
for Peace - Values
Value Neutral technology: A Hundred years ago the
prevalent belief was that science was the pure pursuit of
knowledge (a noble effort) and technology was value-neutral,
meaning any technology could be used for constructive
purposes or destructive purposes. Hence Scientists and
Technologists focused on whatever their pursuits were and
believed that the course of society, culture and humanity
was not their charge. The very belief in Value Neutrality
has created the very monstrosities of technologies including
the atom bomb, hydrogen bomb, land mines, cruise missiles,
laser-guided delivery of bombs, multiple independent
re-entry vehicles. We have managed to demonstrate that now
there exist technologies that have NO constructive purpose
at all, only destructive purposes.
TIP
raises the question: Is it possible to create
technologies that have ONLY constructive uses? We don’t
know the answer now, but believe it could be so. If there is
even the slightest chance that we could do that, then I
believe scientists and technologies suddenly shoulder an
enormous responsibility – to create such technologies now.
Technology Initiatives for Peace - Examples
1. TrustNet
“trust game” – a discovery and learning environment – two
person games, team games, Give and Take game
2. United
Nations “Peace Game” – a simulation
3. http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles%5El1066&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Culture
or
http://tinyurl.com/cgdpo
Working toward intercultural understanding and world peace
may seem like serious business, but to Tamar Meshulam, it’s
a game. Not just any game, however, - a large, beautifully
designed prize-winning game.
A
unique project that Meshulam designed and built, entitled “Master
Peace” won first place at the recent UNESCO Design
contest in Japan, which has been held annually every five
years in order to encourage young designers to develop
creations that contribute to society and help to change the
world for the better.
“I
tried to promote the value of listening and sensitivity, to
encourage improvisation. I believe in showing support for
the values you stand for, and while it’s easy for extremists
of all kind to stand up for themselves. That’s how society
tends to get polarized and go to extremes. This was my way
of representing the values of moderation and cooperation and
sensitivity and giving it a shape and a form. Keeping a
message of moderation and balance is crucial in a place like
Jerusalem.”
4. My friend of a few
years, Ann Mason is living in Australia. She has been
builiding up a website of stories - all about peace.http://www.tlpeace.org.au/index.htm
Early on, as a teacher, she got children to write and
collect stories. Recently she has had adults working in the
Peace arena, some famous and some to be famous, write
stories for her. It is a rich collection.
5. Ronit Kampf, a Reuters Digital
Vision scholar at Stanford University and a Post Doctoral
Student, Communication. Her research covers:
Social-Cognition, Conflict Resolution, Utilizing New
Technologies to Study Conflict Resolution, Inter-Group
Perception, Out-Group Homogeneity Effect, Ethnocentrism,
Stereotypes, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Her project
“Building Digital Bridges” develops a multiplayer online
gaming space that will provide Palestinian and Israeli teens
with a learning experience of cooperation.
Ronit Kampf runs the Building Digital Bridges project
together with Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves at the Digital
Media Collaboratory at Stanford University. The project
“Building Digital Bridges” develops a multiplayer online
gaming space that will provide Palestinian and Israeli teens
with a learning experience of cooperation. The platform will
be developed at Stanford University, and tested in Computer
Clubhouses and computer labs at high schools in Israel,
Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Why can digital media best serve this purpose? Because
Israeli and Palestinian youngsters do not have a direct
access to one another, computer-based media can bridge this
geographical distance by providing these teens with a
virtual meeting ground to share experiences, and maintain
open and active dialogue. Moreoever, virtual coexistence
activities can bring many teens together at the same time,
at a relatively low cost, and on a regular basis (including
periods of unrest). From a peace initiative point of
view, the Building Digital Bridges gaming space, unlike many
other games, aims for win-win situations and fair dynamics
between players by allowing participants to meet each other
beyond prejudices. Palestinian and Israeli youth are
threatened by the other side, and traumatized as a result of
the past violent encounters between the two sides. Against
the background of these negative emotions, our gaming space
can provide these young people with rich and interactive
tools to experience different aspects of each other’s every
day life. Thus, our gaming space let teens interact on a
personal level, and look at one another beyond the black and
white picture constructed by various social institutions
such as the mass media (especially the electronic ones).
Joint computational projects can serve as a starting point
to establish in future a Middle-Eastern silicon valley. Each
side can bring for this purpose its main advantages (i.e.,
Israel – brains and experience, Palestine – well educated
human resources), and thus build a bridge of cooperation by
economic projects for the welfare of both sides and the
whole region.
6.
John Stautner of ETSZONE responded to the Hurricane
Katrina by setting up an ECC (Emegency Communications
Center) that would help thousands of people reunite and find
their families, friends and loved ones. John and his team
literally put this facility up overnight and ran the service
on a server that runs on the ETSZONE network. Utilizing the
simplest of technologies - an open source version of
MoinMoin wiki - they had individuals sign in with their home
phone number and leave a wiki note giving their location and
way to reach them. Such an elegant and simple solution to a
seemingly complex problem. If you saw what the Red Cross,
Microsoft and Yahoo had setup you will admire the elegance
and simplicity of this solution. In addition, using their
VoIP technologies, they offered free phone calls right from
the wiki and the support to leave voice mails for each
other.
In my view, ECC not only offered timely help to those need
this assistance, but also exemplified how technologists,
using freely available software and their own server, at
very low cost but with dedication can solve problems. So I
regarded this as an outstanding example of the kind of
projects TIP will sponsor and support.
Technology Initiatives for Peace - Expected outcomes
Synthesis of a needs-framework driven by peace, economic
prosperity, local and regional civic freedom, sustainable
living, emergency management and social justice.
Formulation of Technology roadmaps - 5 years, 20
year, and 100 year - anticipated functionalities, needed
infrastructure development, and research priorities.
Capability identification – Roster of research centers
that have the needed technology research capabilities and
those who subscribe to the values expressed in the
needs-framework. Identification of public funding methods
to promote research and basic technology development and
private equity processes to support entrepreneurship in
bringing basic technology to pilot stage, application and
deployment.
Initiation of a Coordination Office within the scope
of the UN or the US government and EU government to drive
the roadmap and to keep it updated.
In addition to the Coordination
Office we would create a self-regulating community to refine
and drive the roadmap, along the lines of the open source
model. A peer-to-peer community that keeps all the resulting
technology open, common and shared property.
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