The Quiet Revolution
BY SHELDON HIMELFARB This is the first installment of PeaceTech, a series on FP 's new Peace Channel, in collaboration with the U.S. Institute of Peace, that will regularly report on innovative uses of technology to bring security and stability to communities around the world. While much attention has focused recently on debating the role of social media in high-profile events like the Arab Spring and the war in Syria, a quieter revolution has been happening around the globe. It's a revolution in innovation, information, and communication. And it could have big implications for the lives of people from Colombia to Egypt, Kenya to Afghanistan. This revolution is in the way technologies are being used at the community level to mitigate causes of violence. It's difficult to think of a single issue in the conflict-management field -- election violence, interethnic hatred, land disputes, gender violence, and so on -- in which there hasn't been an effort to use dig...