Over August and September this year, I conducted Sri Lanka’s first workshops on the ethical, legal use of drones or UAVs in journalism. The workshop was heavily anchored to the ethics around the use of drones, the detailed regulations by the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka (CAASL) around UAVs flights, a practical, hands-on segment where all
Category: ICT for Peacebuilding
ICCM 2016, Manila, Philippines: Video message from ICT4Peace Foundation
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
Remembering is resisting
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
Whatsapp during a live protest
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
Sinhale’s crisis of legitimacy
Though this poster is very easily debunked, the intent is clear. It is not just aimed at discrediting those who organised the vigil. The purpose it serves is larger and holds currency for longer. The intent here is to mislead and spread hate against identity groups targeted by Sinhale as being somehow anti-patriotic, alien and
Government Information Centre as portal for Right to Information in Sri Lanka
I was recently asked for my input to a submission to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) process around Sri Lanka’s Right to Information (RTI) framework. In the course of my research, I revisited the Government’s 1919 call centre and web based services, run by the Government Information Centre. When studying the 1919 framework, it was
Leveraging technology for social change in Sri Lanka
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.
Build Peace 2016: Don’t miss out on registration!
We are getting closer to Build Peace 2016, which going by the agenda now online is shaping up to be the best yet. Spread over three days, we have a great line-up of speakers (online bots for activism, virtual reality for peacebuilding, combating extremism online) and a growing selection of workshops (videogames for peace, co-designing
Session on social media in Sri Lanka
Made the following introductory presentation on social media in Sri Lanka today, focussing on civic media, to around 25 – 30 new recruits of the National Information Centre. The training was held at Visumpaya in Colombo, and conducted in Sinhala and English.
Countering Violent Extremism & Mobile Advocacy in Myanmar
Cross-posted from the ICT4Peace Foundation’s website. ### I was invited to take part in Tech Camp 2016, held at Phandeeyar, where I talked about and trained on mobile advocacy and activism strategies. Calling on the work engineered in Sri Lanka around election monitoring, civil society mobilisation, voter education and civic media, I talked about how
