Digital Diplomacy & New Technology
UNICEF recently announced its first portfolio of investments in open-source technology solutions. These include tools that improve connectivity, real time data collection, identity technology and learning. The fund is supporting 9Needs, a South African startup that uses blockchain and advances in identity technology to create better management systems for early childhood development service, Blockchain News reported.
To achieve concrete policy objectives, however, Indian bureaucrats and civil society representatives will need to redouble efforts to ‘work on the inside’ and engage more closely with various Internet governance body mechanisms.
A decade ago, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division and its stakeholders stared blankly at the skyrocketing evolution of social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter—just to name a few—were new phenomena which at first seemed to attract young people, but had no place in a serious international organization that dealt with high-level political topics, let alone security and defense.