- Social Innovation Fellowship
Award Year
Our project is driven by the belief that the next generation of Indian and Pakistani leaders must be prepared to work together. Unfortunately, it is also inspired by the realization that there seem to be limited opportunities for dialogue and for the building of relationships between Indian and Pakistani youth within South Asia. We believe that such a dialogue would promote awareness, remove misconceptions, and unveil greater avenues for collaboration. Networks for Peace therefore seeks to encourage such conversation between Indian and Pakistani students through a combination of web-based social media technology and face-to-face meetings. It uses this model to create ongoing, policy-oriented dialogues and collaborative research initiatives between top university students in India and Pakistan.
Networks for Peace Press
Students aim to expose India-Pakistan conflict
Brown Daily Herald, February 26, 2009
Personal Statement
Having grown up in Pakistan, the India- Pakistan conflict has never been very far from the news. However, while political relations between India and Pakistan have often been frosty, interactions on levels cultural, social and personal have been thriving, driven often by the communications technologies of the 21st century, be they satellite television, the internet, or even cheap DVD's. With Networks for Peace, my hope is that i can help harness some of this technology, to foster a discussion between the youth on either side, and to come up with fresh and innovative solutions to disputes that have defied resolution for 60 years. In doing so i will draw on my background, as someone who has engaged with many of these issues in the past, be it through Debate and the Global Young Leaders Conference in high school, or as a founder member of the Pakistani Students Association at Brown, an associate editor of the Brown Journal of World Affairs, and an active member of the South Asian community at Brown.