Digital diplomacy, a priority for the State Department under the Obama administration, appears to be at a crossroads. [...] The department is particularly challenged now, Cochran said, "because there are not enough leaders in the building." "What you need is assistant secretaries, you need undersecretaries, you need deputy secretaries,” he added. “You need a team of people telling the crew, where's this ship going."

The Gaza blockade, which will reach its tenth year in June, makes it impossible for Palestinians living there to engage with Palestinians living in the remainder of the Palestinian territory – the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Things changed when Nawal heard of the ‘Virtual Majilis’, an online exchange platform run by UNICEF to help connect students in Gaza with students in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Where nations were once connected through emissaries and traders, they are now networked through millions of citizens by tools such as fibre optics... Information flows have become multidirectional with a multitude of media platforms that have mushroomed increasing direct communications, greater access to information, information sharing, and greater outreach.

The IT industry has taken to the global stage India's ‘soft power' and made India as a knowledge power. “Indians are looked upon by global companies for leadership. You have kindled among millions of young Indians the power of using knowledge as a passport to the future...."

Digital diplomacy... has been made possible by the adoption, within diplomatic institutions and government more generally, of digitally-based systems of data creation, transmission and storage using the Internet, social media platforms, computers, and a variety of wireless electronic devices.

India's success with IT brought the world to India. Now India is using IT to help bring other countries to the world.

An information technology hot spot for more than a decade, with a focus on investment and innovation, South Moravia is working strategically to bring in businesses and ideas that fit its research-led vision.