The Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted two events in May, which brought together the technology and activist communities in support of a common cause-Egypt. The Program benefitted tremendously from the presence of two Egyptian activists, Ahmed Saleh and Sabah Hamamou, who traveled from Cairo to share their experiences and contribute ideas to help build a community between Tahrir Square and Silicon Valley. These events were coordinated by Stanford and Silicon Valley technology firms interested in leveraging their expertise in technology innovation to provide practical benefits for pro-democracy activists in Egypt and beyond.

On May 14, the Program on Liberation Technology in partnership with the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab, Code the Change (a Stanford student group), CloudtoStreet, and Platform d, organized a Hack-a-Thon for Egypt at Stanford's design school. This event attracted more than 80 computer engineers, programmers, technologists, academics, activists, and members of the public. All expressed a firm commitment to volunteer their skills and time towards the development of technology applications to aid activists.

Volunteers connected in real time with Egyptian activists through videoconference and live presentations where they described the type of applications that would be beneficial to their work. Programmers and designers in the room listened intently as ideas for the following technologies were proposed; mobile phone applications for political mobilization, web-based training for election monitors, a crowdsourcing platform for constitutional negotiations, and a tool to monitor the Egyptian parliament.

Ahmed Saleh, a political activist and founder of the Kifaya movement (the Egyptian Movement for Change), provided a personal account of the revolution, captivating the audience's attention with his details of the 18 days leading up to President Mubarak's fall. Sabah Hamamou, a journalist and blogger, emphasized social media's impact on the public's capacity to organize and connect.

Hackers quickly got to work dividing into groups to begin designing the prototypes for some of the suggested applications. Sketching out designs on whiteboards and developing basic code, programmers worked late into the evening on four tangible projects: a web platform to crowdsource constitutional negotiations, a content management system for an Egyptian watchdog group to increase citizens’ ability to hold politicians to account, an election monitoring training and certification interface, and new visualizations of Twitter usage data emerging from the 18 days of protests.

Going forward, the teams will work with their Egyptian counterparts to scale-up their projects into applications with practical and broad application. The CloudtoStreet project led by CDDRL visiting scholar Ben Rowswell will work to incubate several of the projects and maintain connections with their Egyptian partners to aid in the implementation phase on the ground. A follow-on event to the Hack-a-Thon is planned for the summer quarter of 2011 to encourage the teams to continue the development of applications.

The second event hosted by the Program on Liberation Technology on May 20, brought executives from Google and Facebook to Stanford to explore social media's impact on democratic transition. More than 40 gathered to hear from Egyptian activists Saleh and Hamamou who spoke at length about their direct experience using social media and its impact on the uprisings.

According to Saleh, "Facebook had a humble start in 2008 (in Egypt) but quickly became viral when activists coordinated a national strike on April 6. This shocked the security services but they quickly learned from their mistakes.” The We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page communicated the message of the revolution, Saleh explained, but it still took a great deal of social mobilization to convince people to join the protests in Cairo. Once the power was cut, Saleh told the audience, the "keyboard activists" were then inspired to go to the streets.

If it wasn't for the world watching (the revolution) I am not sure we could have done it.
-Sabah Hamamou

Hamamou showed a variety of YouTube videos featuring cartoons poking fun at the deposed regime, which were produced by small Egyptian media companies. In doing so, she highlighted the fact that social media is becoming increasingly more popular in Egypt as politicians and civil society groups use this tool for civic education and outreach. Sabah explained this by noting that "people want alternative ways of being entertained outside of traditional media." She continued by pointing out that, "if it wasn't for the world watching (the revolution) I am not sure we could have done it."

Both activists outlined practical steps that the technologists in the room could take to help aid their efforts. Saleh underscored the importance of secure communication, which is an enormous challenge for activists who are confronted with sophisticated technologies used by regimes to survey their communication. With limited funds, activists are unable to afford expensive circumvention systems and require software and secure tools that provide user-friendly and cheap solutions. Saleh ended by emphasizing that these secure communication technologies can save lives and are urgently needed.

Hamamou suggested that Silicon Valley-based technology companies should expand their grant-making and philanthropic programs to include Egypt where they can engage directly with NGOs on the ground. She specifically highlighted YouTube's Partnership program and Google's digital journalism grant, which currently have no formal presence in Egypt. A representative from Google explained that engagement in Egypt requires them to comply with local laws to use the Egypt domain, requiring them to censor materials that are not permitted by the authorities. These laws and limitations make it challenging to maximize freedom of expression in this kind of environment.

Both events allowed the Program on Liberation Technology and its partners to match the technological ingenuity of Silicon Valley with the needs of activists in Egypt. Looking forward, the Program will be building on the applications created and the community established around this cause to make a more profound impact on the efforts of pro-democracy activists in Egypt and beyond.

Note: News of the Hack-a-Thon spread quickly through both the traditional and social media sectors, eliciting a great deal of interest and coverage of this event. The initiative was featured on the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page, home to over 100,000 international members generating an upwards of 350 "likes" and 80 comments. In addition, Fast Company.com published an article on the event and the Financial Post of Canada mentioned the CloudtoStreet project in their business section. See the links below to read more:

• http://business.financialpost.com/2011/05/26/the-myth-of-the-social-media-revolution/
• http://www.fastcompany.com/1755509/hacking-the-egyptian-revolution
• http://dschool.stanford.edu/2011/05/24/prototype-tools-for-change-in-egypt/

NEWS RELEASE

April 27, 2011

Contact:

Marie-Pierre Ulloa

Executive Officer for International Programs, Stanford Humanities Center,

(650) 724 8106, mpulloa@stanford.edu

International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2011-2012

Distinguished scholars from Australia, Hong Kong - Ghana, Spain, the United Kingdom and France chosen as joint Stanford Humanities Center/FSI international visitors.

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2011-12 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its third year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following six scholars have chosen to be in residence during the 2011-2012 academic year:

• Adams Bodomo (October-November 2011) is the Chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the Director of the University’s African Studies Program. A linguist hailing from Ghana, his primary expertise resides in the structure of West-African languages (Akan, Dagaare). He has recently undertaken research on the African diaspora in Asia, as well as conducted fieldwork on Zhuang, a minority language in China. He was nominated by the Department of Linguistics.

• Mario Carretero (January 2012) is a Professor of Psychology at Autonoma University of Madrid, and one of the most prominent leaders studying how young people develop historical consciousness and how they understand history. His work has been at the forefront of the “history wars” since the 1990s over what and who should determine the curriculum on the Spanish-speaking world. Carretero’s research, unlike scholars who explore such issues by dissecting textbooks, is unique in its commitment to fieldwork - conducting interviews with adolescents and observing them in real life situations to understand the dynamics of cultural transmission and resistance. He was nominated by the School of Education.

• Catherine Gousseff (February 2012) is a world-renowned leading figure in East-Central European history, politics and society of the twentieth Century, as well as of the former Soviet Union. A researcher at the French CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) she is currently affiliated with the Marc Bloch Center in Berlin. While at Stanford, she will share insights into her new research project on collective memories of displacements, diaspora politics in wartime and post-war eras, notably the Polish-Ukrainian population exchange (1944-1950). She was nominated by the Europe Center.

• James Laidlaw (April 2012) is an anthropologist at Cambridge University. Professor Laidlaw is deeply engaged in fieldwork in Asia, researching the Buddhist ethics of self-cultivation, looking at how the traditional means by which Buddhists practice self-cultivation –asceticism, meditation- are undergoing a massive restructuring. Practices once reserved for male monks are now being adopted by women and laity. James Laidlaw has edited seven books, the two latest ones on the cognitive approaches to religion, exploring them from an ethnographic perspective. He is also an expert on Jainism, a tradition of monastic renunciation like Buddhism that is also the religion of choice of a larger lay population. He was nominated by the Department of Anthropology.

•    Monica Quijada (October-November 2011) is a public intellectual and historian of Spain and Latin America at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid. Her engagement with the UN in Argentina (working with refugees) and her directorship of the investigation carried out in the late 1990s regarding Nazi activities during the Second World War and in post-war Argentina shows her commitment to the public space. She has written extensively on dictatorship, populism, and war and their effect on the public sphere in Argentina and Spain as well as on the relationship between nineteenth-century Latin American states and their indigenous populations. She was nominated by the History Department and the Center for Latin American Studies.

•    Patrick Wolfe (May-June 2012) is a historian at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a premier historian of settler colonialism, currently working on a comparative transnational history of settler-colonial discourses of race in Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Israel/Palestine. While at Stanford, he will give lectures based on his core work on Australia and also on his forthcoming book Settler Colonialism and the American West, 1865-1904 (Princeton University Press). He was nominated by the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Relevant URLs:

Stanford Humanities Center

http://shc.stanford.edu/

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

http://fsi.stanford.edu/

"What if we offered a prayer for the soul of bin Laden?" The question was tossed into the meeting of the February 20 Movement like a hand grenade. But the young men and women gathered in the Moroccan Labor Union building in Rabat didn't duck for cover. Instead, they angrily challenged the questioner, a bearded, middle-aged man representing the Islamist prisoners who have joined from behind the bars with the secular youth movement calling for greater freedoms. "Are you out of your mind?" asked one young man. "Just because we defend you people against torture, it doesn't mean we support terrorism. Don't you impose your creepy agenda on us."

The bearded man beat a hasty retreat. "No problem, let's just do a regular prayer," he said. "We're all Muslims, aren't we?"

The meeting had been held to discuss plans for protest outside the infamous Temara detention center, located in a cork-oak forest near Rabat, where terrorism suspects have been tortured, according to Amnesty International. The Islamist may have thought he could set the agenda: after all, his kind had for decades been the only antimonarchy group of any consequence. But as he discovered, change has come to Morocco.

It must annoy the Islamists that the shots are being called by these new kids on the block — and that their vibrant activism is shaking up the monarchy in ways the Islamists have consistently failed to for more than 30 years. The kids scored their first big success on Feb. 20, when tens of thousands of Moroccans hit the streets of more than 50 towns and cities, demanding change. The protests had been organized by young independent activists responding to calls made on Facebook.

Since that date — so glorious that the youth movement was named after it — hundreds of thousands have demonstrated, at least once a week. The pressure has already compelled King Mohammed VI to promise constitutional reforms, to devolve some of his absolute powers to the elected government. But many young Moroccans want the king to "reign, not rule." The political arm wrestling with the monarchy continues.

But many young Moroccans want the king to "reign, not rule."

The Islamists, long thought to have the only grass-roots organization, had no choice but to line up behind the Feb. 20 banner. But the youth set stringent conditions: they would tolerate no Islamic signs or banners, no chants of "Allahu akbar" (God is great), and no segregation of the sexes. It was a revolution within a revolution.

Not so long ago, the Islamists were condemning as apostates some of the same youth leaders. In 2009, they launched a Facebook group calling for a public daytime meal during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims can eat only before dawn and after dusk. The objective: to "open a debate on freedom of conscience." Predictably, a national scandal ensued. But this was not an isolated instance of iconoclastic behavior. For several years, groups of Moroccans have been using the power of social media — as well as the ability to attract the conventional media — to clamor for the freedom of belief, sexual liberty (notably for gays) and other individual freedoms that had until then been unthinkable.

The country's conservative majority was suitably horrified, but the young activists were able to rally growing constituencies among human-rights advocates, leftist groups and the middle-class youth. Even so, the core group of renegades continued to be perceived as little more than a bunch of crazy kids — until they and their sympathizers spearheaded the most powerful wave of change since the kingdom's independence, half a century ago.

What are the kids going to do with their newfound status? Nizar Bennamate, a leader of the Feb. 20 Rabat group, says some of their more envelope-pushing demands will have to wait for another day. "For now, democracy is our priority battle," he told me. Fair enough. But sooner or later, this battle will come to a close: Morocco's authoritarian system will irrevocably change, for that is the direction of history. When that day comes, Islamists and secularists will face off for a new fight over the soul of the new Morocco.

Who will win? That's hard to predict. But the secular youth have done well to position themselves as the leaders of the antigovernment protests. That planned demonstration at the Temara detention center was brutally broken up by police: 16 protesters were taken to the hospital, but the others reconvened in Rabat's city center to keep protesting. Nobody's calling them the crazy kids anymore.

Eight-four percent of Fortune Global 100 companies worldwide now utilize at least one social media platform (SMP), indicates a recent study by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller.

Numerous statistical studies such as this exist, but how do we understand the numbers in terms of the actual impact of SMPs on business?

Despite the growing adoption of SMPs as a business tool, this is still a relatively new and under-studied area of technology—even in Silicon Valley where many SMP innovations originate, says Rafiq Dossani, a senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC). Dossani defines SMPs as “information and communications technology platforms designed for interaction among participants.” He and other academic and industry experts convened at Stanford on May 25 for a discussion of SMP business trends, especially in the areas of recruitment and business development in Silicon Valley.

Their goal? To begin developing a theoretical framework for the study of SMPs as a tool in today’s global business environment. Findings presented during the conference suggest that SMPs serve as another tool for doing business, but do not supplant existing systems and practices. In addition, a great deal of future research is needed on the subject.

Organized by Shorenstein APARC’s Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE), the conference was the sixth in an annual series dedicated to examining the globalization of business services. Previous conferences have addressed topics including outsourcing, system integrators, international recruitment, and clean technologies.

Opening the first session about social media trends among Silicon Valley employers, Philip Jordan and Stephen Jordan of Green LMI Consulting presented findings from a recent survey they conducted of over three hundred firms, especially of larger and technology-related companies. Their study found that over half of Silicon Valley firms surveyed are utilizing social media for external communication and/or for the recruitment and evaluation of new employees, pointing to the utility for job seekers to maintain a professional-looking online presence. Nonetheless, they emphasized that “real” skills and expertise still matter the most to employers.

Manuel Serapio, faculty director and associate professor of international business at the University of Colorado Denver (UC Denver) moderated the panel discussion that followed. Panelists Rahim Fazal, CEO and co-founder of Involver, and Tuomo Nikulainen, a researcher at ETLA, the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, provided commentary during the session.

Dossani led the second session about social media in the workplace with a presentation summarizing a study he conducted on the value of SMPs to business organizations. Surveying employees at twenty Silicon Valley companies, Dossani tested the hypothesis that a SMP has value “only if it improves the reliability of existing information or enables the generation of new information.” SMPs do not automatically generate such information, he stated. Some SMPs are better at generating reliable information (eg., a CEO’s blog) and others enable the generation of new information (eg., a discussion forum). Dossani categorized SMPs in the study by the extent of collaboration they permitted among participants in the creation of new information, as well as the control that was possible over the flow of information. Depending on how the usage of an SMP is organized—who participates and its governance structure—information of potential value to corporates is generated. Dossani noted the difference between individual SMPs, such as Twitter, and websites, such as YouTube, that integrate a number of different social media functions, including video and discussion forums.

In the study, Dossani proposed a theoretical framework for research on SMP business trends, informed by work about strong and weak “ties” conducted by Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. The survey results indicated that SMPs are found useful for project management (low control/high collaboration SMPs) and building employee and consumer awareness (high control/low collaboration SMPs). While this provided support for the hypothesis, said Dossani, other evidence did not support it, such as the limited use of SMPs for human resource functions and strategic planning. This might be due to the nascency of technologies, lack of diversity of platforms, or limited familiarity with the potential of SMPs—clearly, exciting subjects for future research, he concluded.

Henry S. Rowen, co-director of SPRIE, moderated the panel discussion that accompanied Dossani’s presentation. Panelists included Matt Ceniceros, director of global media relations at Applied Materials; Ankit Jain, a software engineer at Google; Don McCullough, vice president of marketing for IP and broadband at Ericsson; and Saurabh Mittal, head of customer experience practice at Wipro.

Emerging from the conference is the understanding that companies are increasingly embracing SMPs as a tool to enhance their current business practices, but not uniformly. To understand the role of SMPs in business—both in Silicon Valley and worldwide—a theoretical framework, such as Dossani suggested, and further studies are needed.

Papers and slides from the two main presentations are now available online, with full audio from the event to be added soon.

In addition to longtime Globalization of Business Services conference co-sponsors Wipro, UC Denver, and ETLA, Adobe and Ericsson also provided co-sponsorship for this year’s event.

CISAC co-director Scott Sagan was a guest host on Stanford radio, KZSU-90.1, and discussed nonproliferation, Iraq, and the soundtrack to war and peace. Listen to his picks of songs on conflict, including The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, and Marvin Gaye.

The Center for International Security and Cooperation is pleased to announce the selection of 13 rising seniors for participation in its Undergraduate Honors Program in International Security Studies. 

The program provides an opportunity for eligible students focusing on international security subjects in any field to earn an honors certificate.

Students selected intern with a security-related organization, attend the program's honors college in Washington, D.C. in September, participate in a year-long core seminar on international security research, and produce an honors thesis with policy implications.

 

Joshua Alvarez

International Relations, Minor in Economics

Identity and Security: Turkey's Grand Strategy in the Middle East

 

Keshia Bonner

International Relations, Minor in Economics

United States Policy Towards Hamas and Hezbollah as State Actors

 

Stephen Craig

Political Science

Security Issues and Domestic Constraints on European Integration

 

Noura Elfarra

Political Science

How does Regime Change and Revolution Affect the Secret Police?

 

Alison Epstein

International Relations

British and American Intelligence Cooperation: the Iraq Inquiry and the New Face of the Special Relationship

 

Peter Hong

Political Science

Recalibrating and Resolving Deficiencies in Multinational Nuclear Fuel Cycle Initiatives

 

Mohammad Islam

Electrical Engineering, Minor in International Relations

Domestic Terrorism Prevention Strategies in the US and UK

 

Suraya Omar

Materials Science and Engineering

North Korea's Ambitions for a Light Water Reactor

 

Clay Ramel

Science, Technology & Society – Energy Engineering Concentration

National Security Dimensions of Developing an Energy Secure United States 

 

Nick Rosellini

International Relations, Minor in Economics & Modern Languages

The NATO Strategic Concept: Evolution of a Nuclear Posture 1957-2010

 

Ram Sachs

Earth Systems, Minor in Modern Languages

Environmental Dimensions of Security - Yemen and Violent Extremism

 

Jeffrey Sweet

Materials Science and Engineering

The Effect of Public Perceptions of Diseases such as HIV, H1N1, SARS, and Anthrax on the Effectiveness of Controlling Epidemics

 

Reagan Thompson

International Relations, Minor in Chinese

The Chinese Influence in Africa: Case Studies of Ghana and Angola

As a new era of democratic change swept across the Arab world this year, the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law hosted two conferences to examine the Arab Spring. On April 29, twelve internationally renowned Egypt scholars convened at Stanford to probe the root causes of the Egyptian revolution and debate the challenges facing the transition period. The second annual ARD conference held May 12-13, brought Arab activists and academics from the region together to provide a comparative perspective on political activism.

Participants in the Democratic Transition in Egypt conference were hesitant to label the popular uprising in Egypt a revolution in light of the fragile transition period. According to Professor Jason Brownlee of the University of Texas at Austin, "repressive agencies of the old order still exist in Egypt: the military intelligence, state security, and the general intelligence service."

Scholars unanimously agreed that nascent opposition parties face the enormous challenge of organizing during a hurried transition period and within a competitive party and campaign structure. Professor Samer Soliman from the American University in Cairo emphasized this point, "the party law is designed to bias the old guard and a legacy of suspicion towards political parties leaves youth hesitant to join or form political parties."

Significant discussion was dedicated to the role of the Muslim Brotherhood who many argued is the only well-organized opposition party in Egypt capable of commanding a majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Scholars were left wondering how to translate the success of this popular movement into a constitutionally-based political system representative of all societal interests.

The From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World conference featured eight activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, and Yemen--in addition to a live presentation from Ramallah by Mustafa Barghouthi --who were joined by leading scholars to provide a grassroots perspective and original voice to the uprisings.

Panels presented country-based case studies highlighting the key challenges activists face in diverse Arab states and societies to evaluate the potential of democratic transition to take root. While variation exists in each country, it was clear that activists faced the same obstacles in pursuit of their goals and clearly benefitted from this shared forum at Stanford.

A new generation of young political activists connected through social networks learned through the revolutionary experiences of their Facebook friends. Stephane Lacoix, Sciences Po

Participants emphasized the contagion that spread protests across the region, beginning in Tunisia. Stéphane Lacoix of Sciences Po illustrated this point, "a new generation of young political activists connected through social networks learned through the revolutionary experiences of their Facebook friends."

Looking forward, participants agreed that these revolutions are far from complete and challenging work lies ahead. According to CDDRL director Larry Diamond, "democratic change is not produced by grassroots protest and activism alone but requires organization, strategy, and hierarchical structure.”

In each Arab country, tribal, sectarian, political, and religious division threaten the stability of the fragile transition period. In the near term, participants stressed the importance of delaying elections to give time for political parties, institutions, and leadership to develop so the status quo does not reassert itself.

The role of external actors-- from the US to the GCC--was cited as exerting influence on the internal politics in each country. Activists collectively commented on the inconsistency of US foreign policy in the region, which has placed strategic interests above ideological ones, not actively pressing for change in Bahrain, Jordan, and Syria in the same way as in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.

A tone of cautious optimism imbued both conferences as scholars and activists alike were hesitant to declare the Arab Spring a success, stressing that time will determine the ultimate outcome. Both conferences allowed the ARD Program to make a substantial contribution to the body of scholarly research on this topic as conference papers will be published in an edited volume.