FIfFKon22

Peacebuilding in the digital era
2022-10-22, 11:30–12:20 (Europe/Berlin), Einstein-Saal

Hate speech, disinformation, and affective polarisation can exacerbate conflict and division on social media. This talk will run you through peacebuilding in the digital era, what problems we face when trying to identify where conflicts are, and how we use participatory research to find the right interventions for the local context.


During his masters in Neuroscience, Andrew started up an NGO and tried to build an orphanage in Kenya. Two years in, he failed and vowed to build up his skillset and network to try to do good again once he had more experience. He has since then worked as a data scientist at consultancies, scale-ups and start-ups, specializing in Search and Recommendation Systems. After seeing how much more impact we can have with data, he switched from building orphanages to building models for good both as a data science consultant and chair of Stichting Correlaid Netherlands. This past year, he has been building Phoenix, an open source social media listening platform to empower local peacebuilders in their peacebuilding efforts.

Davar Mohammad is a Kurdish journalist based in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. With a great interest in social media analysis, he also closely follows local media for identifying dis/misinformation in the digital sphere. He has been part of a six-month-long pilot project intended to identify, map, analyze, and intervene in a pressing social media issue in Iraq. He also closely follows Iraqi social media platforms for dis/misinformation.