Via ConstitutionNet’s website. ### Sanjana Hattotuwa of the ICT4Peace Foundation speaks about the key characteristics and functionalities of the internet, social media and mobile technologies which have changed our world, and which offer promise for democratizing constitution building processes. What’s changing? Information flow is new. The diffusion of information and events is far faster than before. Information flow across countries, languages, ...
Not for the first time, I relied very heavily on WhatsApp in covering the Different Yet Equal vigil in Colombo, and the resulting drama. Updates sent to the Groundviews WhatsApp group (which at the time of writing this has over one hundred subscribers) included audio, video and photos. Also sent vital context around the use of the racist Sinhale flag. ...
Disaster response and the use of technology. Some thoughts on how ICTs were used in the response to Cyclone Roanu that hit Sri Lanka earlier this month. Disasters make pundits of many. And yet, when the next hazard hits, we often tend to deal with the significant challenges around the same, if not greater magnitude of a disaster. The process ...
Cross-posted from Groundviews. ### Angelo Fernando, in addition to being a long-standing columnist in the Lanka Monthly Digest (LMD) is also the author of a new book, Chat Republic: How Social Media Drives Us To Be Human 1.0 in a Web 2.0 World. We begin our conversation on matters digital and online by looking at how Angelo’s father in particular ...
I was invited by the WEF GlobalShapers Colombo Hub (see Facebook page here) to showcase the ‘Corridors of Power‘ exhibition again and also to speak on it. The exhibition, first held in 2015 at the JDA Perera Gallery, was unlike any other project combining design, architecture and constitutional theory. It occupied a very large floor space, which wasn’t available at the GlobalShaper’s ...
On the invitation of SciDev.net, I wrote earlier this year an article looking at Big Data from the perspective of someone who lives in a country post-war, but reeling from systemic conflict, human rights abuse and under an illiberal, authoritarian regime. The article was published in April on SciDev.net’s site, as part of an excellent collection of writing on ...
The International Conference of Crisis Mappers (ICCM) is the leading humanitarian technology event of the year, bringing together the most important humanitarian, human rights, development and media organizations with the world’s best technology companies, software developers and academics. As thus one of the few neutral spaces where such important conversations can take place, the annual ICCM conference brings together ...
It’s been a while since I updated this blog – nearly a year in fact. My previous post, in early July 2013 was around a presentation I made on digital archives at an exhibition in Colombo. Coincidentally, I am now preparing for another public talk on digital archives (Capturing the Ephemeral: Archiving our digital present), towards the end of this ...
‘Corridors of Power’, a path-breaking project marrying constitutional reform and theory with architecture, is a finalist in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas 2017 awards, under the Urban Design category. As noted online, “Fast Company sifted through more than 1,000 truly impressive entries to find the ones our panel of judges thought were the best combination of creative problem solving and ...
I gave a short talk on the politics of digital memorialisation through personal archives at Colomboscope 2016 on a panel titled ‘Rendering Realities’, moderated by Subha Wijesiriwardena. The festival’s description of my presentation read, Sanjana focuses on the role of the human in creating digital archives. He reflects on the ways digital archives are being generated, some of the technologies ...
Delivered a lecture on 6 March 2023 over a Twitter Space, moderated by Priyanga Hettiarachi, on my study of Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya over 2022. Download the complete slidedeck here or as a PDF here. You’ll need to have the Powerpoint open to follow along with the lecture. Note that the Powerpoint version has video, and sound, which obviously will ...
Legal Guarantees for FOE in Sri Lanka and how they are being eroded from Centre for Policy Alternatives on Vimeo. Legal Guarantees for FOE in Sri Lanka and how they are being eroded (Sinhala) from Centre for Policy Alternatives on Vimeo. Legal Guarantees for FOE in Sri Lanka and how they are being eroded (Tamil) from Centre for Policy ...
How you can use the Internet and Web from Centre for Policy Alternatives on Vimeo. How you can use the Internet and Web (Sinhala) from Centre for Policy Alternatives on Vimeo. How you can use the Internet and Web (Tamil) from Centre for Policy Alternatives on Vimeo. See related posters on Flickr here. Filed under: ICT for Peacebuilding, ICTs in general
Cross-posted from ICT4Peace Foundation website. Originally published on 22 May 2019. ### Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation, was invited by the organisers of Point 8.0 in Sarajevo to participate in a panel discussion anchored to Tech, Fear and Accountability, featuring Victoire Rio and moderated by Stefania Koskova. The conversation was anchored to social media in general, ...
Cross-posted from ICT4Peace Foundation website. Originally posted on 10 June 2019. First two questions on (social) media literacy and the staggering bias present, today, in AI and ML architectures were penned and posted by me, complementing two others on AI’s weaponisation from a colleague. ### To support the launch of the UN SG Guterres’ Report on Digital Cooperation on ...
Cross-posted from the ICT4Peace Foundation’s site. ### On the invitation of Christina Goodness, Chief Information Management Officer at the Departments of Peacebuilding, Political and Peace Operations DPPA-DPO, the ICT4Peace Foundation’s Sanjana Hattotuwa gave a presentation titled ‘Beyond the global reset: Towards pandemic panopticons or something radically new?’ as part of the ‘(un)data Seminar Series on Outrageous Questions’. Scheduled for 1.5hrs ...
First published on the ICT4Peace Foundation website. ### For us the land is matrix and destroyer,Resentful, darkly knownBy sunset omens, low words heard in branches.— Poem in the Matukituki Valley, James K. Baxter “In the woods we return to reason and faith.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural hui on countering terrorism and violent extremism, He Whenua Taurikura, meaning a ...
Getting ready for the session on Youth & ICT by @sanjanah of @groundviews at the @stitchmovement TEP. http://t.co/s3JtGPcXv0— Pd. (@prabudeepan) May 03, 2014 I delivered today, in Sinhala, a lecture on how to use social media for social justice campaigns for a group of volunteers from the STITCH Movement, aged between 16 – 30, from across Sri Lanka. The weekend ...
The Ceylon Today newspaper quotes me in what is becoming a familiar story – identity theft and the unauthorised use of photos posted to various online social media fora for nefarious activities. Women and Media Collective‘s Sepali Kottegoda underscores the problem, yet the challenge remains on how to build and teach this (new) media literacy to parents, young adults and ...
Friend and colleague Sam de Silva, also the Country Director of Internews Sri Lanka, has an interesting op-ed published in The Daily FT today. Communications and information are critical to the success of this new Government, particularly with the two massive undertakings of building a new constitution and taking the country through a reconciliation process. The Government must have a ...
