EnPAx Frontier Technology Interest Group Launched (and Seeking Members!)

Aug 25, 2021 | Frontier Technology Interest Group, Environmental Peacebuilding Association

Frontier technologies have become invaluable assets for addressing human security challenges, environmental degradation, and climate change. They also offer great potential for resilience planning, conflict and disaster early warning, conflict monitoring, negotiation and mediation, cooperative resource management, land use planning, and much more. At the same time, there are risks to privacy, accountability, accessibility, disinformation, data misuse, and other ethical dilemmas that must be managed. Frontier technology encompasses many types of technology, including big data, Earth Observation, crowdsourcing, machine learning, simulation modeling, digital communications, blockchain, cybersecurity, and others.The Frontier Technology Interest Group of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association seeks to be a forum of discussion on the responsible application and governance of frontier technologies. The goal of the group is to promote and foster the application of these technologies to build peaceful communities and contribute to environmental protection, restoration, and conservation. This group will discuss new developments in the field and best practices that are needed for the development of tools, quality control, access and interoperability, privacy and security, transparency and accountability, and business models for digital public goods. The Frontier Technology Interest Group is open to all Association members interested in big data, emerging technologies, and their role at the intersection of the environment, conflict, and peacebuilding. The Interest Group collaborates via quarterly meetings, planned events and discussions, and ongoing text dialogues that are available regardless of timezone.  

Plans for Interest Group Activities

  • News sharing and discussion
  • Yearly check-in, what is everyone working on?
  • Online speakers and discussions
    • Reports from the field
    • Academics sharing their research
  • Joint papers
  • Guide to resources, including tools and data sets
  • Conference panels and workshops
  • Summer school tech in environmental peacebuilding
    • Could be based on the report or include the report as a core text
    • Could be in collaboration with an outside group

To join or to obtain more information, please contact membership@environmentalpeacebuilding.org.