ISIS vs Silicon Valley: Using Technology in the Midst of Conflict
The world is a scary and fucked up place. Yes, it is true that constant access to news exaggerates the perception of world’s volatility. Taking a look at all economic and social indicators, the world is a much better place than it was even a hundred years ago.
Many would say technology, especially Silicon Valley type of consumer-facing technology, has rapidly accelerated this betterment of the world. Technology has permeated all aspects of our lives and made them simpler and more efficient. These entrepreneurs and startups have changed the way we eat (Seamless), what we eat (Soylent), how we get to places (Uber), and even how we do vacations (AirBnb).
Recently, I can’t help but thinking what is happening outside of our comfortable bubbles?
The world HAS really gotten better. Most of us still (at least who are reading this blog post) don’t have to care about wars, famine, human trafficking, and all those horrible things. But millions out there still do face harsh realities of facing these struggles and conflicts everyday.
My next question: If technology has really permeated all aspects of our lives, can we utilize them to actually solve conflicts that are beyond our imagination? Why hasn’t any entrepreneur/ technologist successfully made a solution for these conflicts?
So I tried to research some non-military, non-state produced technologies that are used in the middle of conflicts, and I was both really shocked and hopeful about what I found from the research.
1. ISIS: Terror Through an Android App
Terror groups have always leveraged social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to spread terror campaigns and gain access to followers. But ISIS has taken this social media campaign to the next level.
In mid-2014, several months after ISIS gained any traction in Iraq, they released an app on Android called ‘Dawn of the Glad Tidings’ (it’s Arabic meaning is much more ominous).
What the app does: it allowed ISIS to gain access to app user’s Twitter account and post on their behalf.
The result: each tweet that was sent through the Android app gets re-posted and re-tweeted through a multiplier network. At one point, ISIS was able to send 40,000 tweets in one day and create such a terror campaign over Baghdad.
This was new. This was scary as hell. Now, even a militia terrorist organization can make a smartphone app designed for terror. The fact that a lot of people has smartphones now, even in conflict-ravaged areas of Syria and Iraq, means that terrorist organizations has a new, cheap network of digital users ready to spread their terror campaigns. Welcome to the new social age of terror.
2. Google & palantir: Fighting human trafficking through data
But the world became much brighter after I realized that there are good guys out there. Among the few technologies used in the midst of conflict out there, one that I really admire is the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network.
The network is a collaboration between Polaris (non-profit working to battle trafficking), Palantir (huge Silicon Valley data analytics company), and Google Ideas (Google’s think/do tank that I am obsessed with). The goal of the network: fighting human trafficking using better data analysis.
They make a software that does two things:
1. Respond to victim needs in real time (when victims call into a human trafficking hotline)
2. Analyze aggregated incident data to understand reach of trafficking networks. e.g how trafficking incidents shift with the seasons
It gets better though. Here’s a quote from Palantir’s site:
“Using our analytical software platform, [..we can] cull data from reported trafficking events, search for nearby service providers, and quickly identify the best way to help based on the caller’s local region — all while the caller is still on the line.”
So the software is able to help a distressed call and map the best way for a victim to flee, find the nearest shelter/ police, and other resources a victim might need in order to flee his/her trafficker. Mindblown. This might be Silicon Valley technology at its finest.
3. Israel: mapping rocket attacks through an app
Another technology working in the midst of conflict that I found really cool was an app launched during the 2014 Israeli-Gaza conflict that provided real time alerts (vibration or sound) when missiles and rockets are fired into Israel. The expected landing location and time of the missile was also detailed.
There were more than 600,000 users downloading the app across Android and iOS, including about 100,000 more users based in the U.S (as detailed in this interview)
I don’t imagine this app did save any Israeli lives, considering how low the casualty was on the Israeli end and how sophisticated the Israeli military alert system already was.
But imagine if this type of apps exist in all civilian-area battlefields with no fully-developed incoming attack alert system and high civilian urban density (read: Gaza).
Maybe simple apps and simple ideas like these will be able to save lives.
Now a very valid response that a lot of entrepreneurs and VC’s when asked about this topic would be “a tech company/ entrepreneur’s responsibility is not to create technologies that can save the world, let alone save a helpless Yazidi in Kurdistan. The main responsibility for an entrepreneur and a company is to create a business and make money”.
And that’s a valid response, the world is a capitalist society and the biggest driver of innovation has always been profit. Israeli’s red alert app and Google/ Palantir’s human trafficking software weren’t exactly made to make a profit (in fact it was Palantir’s philanthropy team that actually made the product).
Dealing with wars and human traffickers is hard — it is different than creating technologies for classrooms and hospitals. It will take a certain type of courage to want to go into this space. But I think it will be interesting to see if there will be any entrepreneur out there than can create a business model creating technology in the midst of conflict soon.
Originally published at www.theweeklypundit.com on February 9, 2015.
