The Exciting World of Digital Peacebuilding - With Grace Connors focussing on peacebuilding and disinformation
The Exciting World of Digital Peacebuilding - With Grace Connors focussing on peacebuilding and disinformation
Today's guest is Grace Connors. Grace is an alumna of the University of Notre Dame with a double major in Computer Science and Peace Studies. Her role as a digital peacebuilder has led me to a diverse array of experiences across sectors and countries, including work in effective philanthropy, start-ups, and strategic communications in the US, social impact technology in Ireland, anti-genocide advocacy in Rwanda, and farming monitoring and analysis in Ghana. After recently completing a Scoville Fellowship with ReThink Media to expand upon her passions in the peacebuilding space, she now serves as a research assistant in the Do Good Institute in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. In this role, she works alongside a team to develop innovative research at the intersection of philanthropy, nonprofits, and volunteerism, with the ultimate goal of advancing the social impact sector.
Outside of her full-time work, she also serves as a Technical Program Manager with Data Science for Sustainable Development, a nonprofit which completes pro bono technical projects for organizations working on the UN’s SDGs, and work as a research assistant in the PeaceTech and Polarization Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Taking all of this together, the underlying theme of Grace's work is a passion for working for the common good through a tech-enabled peacebuilders lens.
To learn more about Grace's work, please check out her LinkedIn profile [https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-connors-5b470815a/].
Additional resources mentioned in the podcast are as follows:
Berghof Disinformation Study:
* Peacebuilding and disinformation: Taking stock and planning ahead [https://berghof-foundation.org/library/peacebuilding-and-disinformation] - Grace Connors, Emma Baumhofer
Pyramid Graph:
* Understanding Digital Conflict Drivers [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-79072-1_9] - Helena Puig Larrauri, Maude Morrison
Algorithms / Platform Design:
* The Algorithmic Management of Polarization and Violence on Social Media [https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-algorithmic-management-of-polarization-and-violence-on-social-media] - Jonathan Stray, Ravi Iyer, Helena Puig Larrauri
* Bridge-building instead of polarization [https://bridging.reframetech.de/en] - Felix Sieker
* Better Feeds: Algorithms That Put People First [https://kgi.georgetown.edu/research-and-commentary/better-feeds/] - Alex Moehring, Alissa Cooper, Arvind Narayanan, Aviv Ovadya, Elissa Redmiles, Jeff Allen, Jonathan Stray, Julia Kamin, Leif Sigerson, Luke Thorburn, Matt Motyl, Motahhare Eslami, Nadine Farid Johnson, Nathaniel Lubin, Ravi Iyer, Zander Arnao
* To Evaluate Meta’s Shift, Focus on the Product Changes, Not the Moderation [https://www.techpolicy.press/to-evaluate-metas-shift-focus-on-the-product-changes-not-the-moderation/] - Ravi Iyer
* Toward Prosocial Tech Design Governance [https://www.techpolicy.press/toward-prosocial-tech-design-governance/?utm_source=pocket_saves] - Lisa Schirch, Lena Slachmuijlder, Ravi Iyer
* Using Collective Dialogues and AI to Find Common Ground Between Israeli and Palestinian Peacebuilders [https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01769] - Andrew Konya, Luke Thorburn, Wasim Almasri, Oded Adomi Leshem, Ariel D. Procaccia, Lisa Schirch, Michiel A
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To learn more about our work, please visit The Peacebuilding Practitioner website. [https://www.thepeacebuildingpractitioner.org/]
The music in this podcast is 'Acoustic Vibe' from RomanSenykMusic [https://www.romansenykmusic.com/royalty-free-music]
