An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, Sanjana Hattotuwa has since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, reconciliation, human rights & democratic governance.

He founded in 2006 and till June 2020 curated the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka’s first civic media website. From 2002-2020 he was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. At CPA, Sanjana pioneered the use of social media for activism and advocacy, as well as digital security training for human rights activists since 2010.

He specialises in, advises and trains on social media communications strategy, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded social media research.

Through the ICT4Peace Foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland, Sanjana helps strengthen information management during crises and programmes to address violent extremism online. For nearly a decade, this included leading the Foundation’s work with the United Nations.

Since 2008, he has worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts.

He is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand on the intersection of social media, political communication, violence generation and the realisation of Sri Lanka’s democratic potential.

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