Data Driven Do No Harm: Lessons from the Field for Designing Open Source Tools in Fragile Settings
This workshop starts with the people already doing this work. In a survey of 211 NGO and international organisation staff for PeaceTech in Practice, 70% said tech experts do not understand the real needs of people working in conflict areas. This is a design problem, not just a policy issue. The people who build humanitarian and peace technology are rarely the ones who have to use it during a crisis, and the tools that result often do not match conditions in the field: low connectivity, old hardware, no maintenance budget. The same pattern shows up in who controls the AI infrastructure these tools rely on. More on that in the session. Open source has real potential here. It removes licensing costs that shut organisations out and can be built for low tech, low connectivity environments. But that only works if people using these tools are listened to when they are designed. Our data shows they currently are not.
"Do No Harm" is a well established principle in peacebuilding, but it is rarely applied to open source design decisions. This workshop draws on the work of the PeaceTech Alliance, a nonprofit Austrian network of peace organisations, technologists and universities. In groups, using sticky notes, participants map where Do No Harm applies to open source tools, how it could be measured, and where the current gaps are. The findings are brought together and shared after the conference.
The session opens with a short presentation using our research. We start by explaining what PeaceTech actually is: the tools, actors and approaches currently used in peacebuilding and humanitarian work. Then we look at the data, both from our own PeaceTech in Practice survey and from a separate Harvard dataset mapping global AI compute infrastructure, and ask a simple question: whether these tools, open source or not, are actually built with people in the Global South in mind, and what could be done to change that. Most peacebuilding and humanitarian actors have very little money and work with low tech, which makes open source often their only realistic option. But that only holds if the tools are designed with their situation in mind: low tech, workable on old hardware, usable with low or no connectivity. That gap, shown clearly in the data, is what the PeaceTech Alliance's work focuses on.
After that, the session becomes practical. Working in small groups with sticky notes, participants map where Do No Harm principles apply to open source tools, how those principles could actually be measured, and where the current gaps are. Groups compare notes and the findings are brought together into a shared output after the conference.
No prior experience in PeaceTech or the humanitarian sector is required. This is open to anyone who designs or maintains open source tools, whether or not crisis deployment is something they have thought about before.
This workshop will be facilitated by the PeaceTech Alliance, a community of technology organisations, universities and peace organisations across Austria and beyond, dedicated to making PeaceTech people-first, peacebuilder-led and grounded in community development, responsible innovation and Do No Harm.
Website: peacetech-alliance.com
Nathan Coyle is a British PeaceTech and digital innovation specialist based in Austria. He is an Expert Advisor for PeaceTech at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and Founder and Principal of the PeaceTech Alliance, an Austrian collaborative bringing together universities, peacebuilding organisations, technology institutions and international partners to develop responsible, human-centred approaches to technology for peace.
His work sits at the intersection of peacebuilding, technology governance, community development, data and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on ensuring that technology is shaped by the realities of peacebuilders and affected communities. His research covers areas including peacebuilder-centric design, community development as a design metric, data sovereignty and data colonialism, responsible AI, Do No Harm approaches to data, AI infrastructure inequalities, misinformation and trust, and technology diplomacy.
Coyle regularly contributes to international policy and diplomatic discussions on emerging technology and peace. His work has included engagement with the United Nations, OSCE and European Union, including speaking at UN events in Geneva and Vienna, contributing to discussions on emerging technologies, peace and human security, engaging with diplomatic and government delegations through the OSCE community in Vienna, and contributing to European discussions on future peace and conflict research. He also represents and communicates emerging Austrian thinking on PeaceTech internationally, helping connect research, peacebuilding practice and diplomacy.
He has advised governments and public institutions across Europe, Africa, Latin America and North America and is the author of Open Data for Everybody, published by Routledge in 2024. His recent academic and policy work examines the gap between PeaceTech design and practitioner realities, community-centred approaches to AI and PeaceTech in Africa, and global inequalities in AI compute, training data and exposure to armed conflict.
His wider career spans community development, public engagement, policy, research and digital transformation. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vice, HuffPost and the New Statesman, he is a TEDx speaker, and in 2024 he was named Thought Leader of the Year at the UK Innovation Awards.
Across his work, a consistent question is who technology is designed for, who has the power to shape it, and how communities can have greater influence over the technologies and data that affect them.
Michael works at the intersection of technology, policy and society, with a focus on responsible and human-centred digital innovation. As an AI4Gov graduate and co-initiator of the PeaceTech Alliance, he brings together perspectives from research, public-sector innovation and international stakeholder engagement, with a particular interest in how emerging technologies can be designed and deployed responsibly in complex and crisis-affected environments.