What Happens When Social Innovation Meets Counter Extremism?

A recent upsurge in vio­lent extrem­ism and the con­flicts it has ignit­ed around the world have led to a glob­al con­ver­sa­tion on how to tack­le this far-reach­ing and increas­ing­ly com­plex issue. Gov­ern­ments and inter­na­tion­al bod­ies have rushed to for­mu­late ade­quate pol­i­cy frame­works and con­fer­ence after con­fer­ence has been con­vened to dis­cuss pos­si­ble solu­tions. How­ev­er, arguably the most pow­er­ful – and ulti­mate­ly the most cred­i­ble – response has come from ordi­nary cit­i­zens. In com­mu­ni­ties world over, small-scale civ­il soci­ety ini­tia­tives have sprung up to counter extrem­ism in its var­i­ous man­i­fes­ta­tions. Although they have reg­is­tered vary­ing lev­els of suc­cess, often due to lack of suf­fi­cient resources and sup­port­ive infra­struc­ture, many believe that they remain our best hope thus far.

In Pak­istan, where extrem­ism-relat­ed con­flict has exact­ed a heavy toll on civil­ians, a unique ini­tia­tive is, for the first time, apply­ing social inno­va­tion in its efforts to counter extremism.The log­ic behind this is sim­ple but potent. Why not har­ness the ben­e­fits of tech­nol­o­gy, com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion to address this prob­lem? After all, it has long been evi­dent that extrem­ists adept­ly manip­u­late tech and dig­i­tal advance­ments to their advan­tage, often more effec­tive­ly than gov­ern­ments and civ­il soci­ety alike.
This ‘Peace Accel­er­a­tor to Counter Extrem­ism’ is the inau­gur­al pro­gram of the Social Inno­va­tion Lab at HIVE – a first-of-its-kind space recent­ly opened in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. Accord­ing to its web­site, HIVE [karach] is “ded­i­cat­ed to train­ing, research, resource devel­op­ment and social inno­va­tion to counter extrem­ism and work towards an inclu­sive, peace­ful soci­ety”.

The Peace Accel­er­a­tor will gath­er select­ed activists, entre­pre­neurs, techies, artists and CBO reps to par­tic­i­pate in its 2‑month pro­gram. Apart from a co-work­ing space designed to encour­age col­lec­tive brain­storm­ing and the cross-pol­li­na­tion of ideas, the pro­gram will pro­vide men­tor­ship from sup­port­ing social inno­va­tors and experts in the field, as well as access to a resource library and ded­i­cat­ed sup­port facil­i­ties. In order to ensure that ear­ly-stage ideas have the best chance of suc­cess, the pro­gram is also offer­ing seed fund­ing of up to 2,000,000 PKR (20,000 USD).

The Peace Accel­er­a­tor pro­gram will run from 15th May – 15th July 2015, and appli­ca­tions to enrol are cur­rent­ly open here.