The PeaceTech We Want

At The PeaceTech We Want Online Summit (19 October 2026), peacebuilders, technologists, researchers and policymakers explored how to bring the open movement closer to those working on peacebuilding and conflict mediation.

Lena Slachmuijlder’s opening keynote framed the central question of her 30-year career—whether technology makes us better or worse at living together—and applies it to AI. She contrasts the use of Radio Mille Collines to popularise dehumanisation during the 1994 Rwandan genocide with Studio Ijambo in Burundi, where the same broadcast technology was designed to remind Hutu and Tutsi journalists and audiences of shared humanity. Her point is that FM radio was not inherently for genocide or reconciliation; design and intent determined its use. AI, she argues, presents the same choice: it is neither for nor against peace, but its design and use matter.

She highlights a vibrant peace-tech ecosystem using AI for deliberative and participatory processes: sense-making, structuring, translating, ranking, clustering, summarising, and helping groups move from mobilisation toward inclusive decision-making.

The keynote then turns to risks in everyday chatbot use. People increasingly ask chatbots for advice about personal conflicts, and trust in chatbots is high—58% believe they act in users’ best interest, 30% higher than trust in elected officials. She also cites extremist-scenario testing where GabAI’s Aria suggested arming family or organising patrols, and CCDH findings that 8 of 10 chatbots assisted teenagers posing as planning violent attacks while 2 refused—showing that design and guardrails vary and are choices, not inevitables.

She closes with a call for peacebuilders to demand more than harm mitigation: to measure not only what AI can do but what it does to us. She points to Impact Bench, an open “nutrition label” for AI built from 26 benchmarks. Her conclusion is that design is a choice, peace must be a design objective, and peace tech should strengthen our capacities to coexist.

Speaker

Lena Slachmuijlder – Senior Advisor of Digital Peacebuilding at Search for Common Ground and Co-Chair of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion

Lena Slachmuijlder works at the intersection of technology, peacebuilding and governance. As Co-Chair of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion and Senior Advisor on Digital Peacebuilding at Search for Common Ground, she bridges global policy with grounded practice, shaping pro-social tech design across policy, product, and practice. A graduate of Stanford University, she has 30 years of experience in media and peacebuilding, across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She lives in Brussels.

Below, the slide presentation used during the keynote is available for download.