Sanjana Hattotuwa
Research Fellow in Dunedin, New Zealand
Sanjana Hattotuwa
Research Fellow in Dunedin, New Zealand
Awarded fellowships by the Ashoka, and Rotary World Peace Foundation, and the first TED Fellow from Sri Lanka, I have, since 2001, been at the forefront of pioneering the integration of technology into peacebuilding initiatives.
In 2007, I founded and continued to curate until June 2020, the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first citizen journalism website. I created, and curated South Asia's first Twitter, and Facebook accounts for civic media, and election violence monitoring.
My expertise extends beyond Sri Lanka, and South Asia, and covers exhaustive work in five continents for over two decades, working on civic media, information disorders, new media literacy, web activism, digital security, and online advocacy.
I have been instrumental in driving forward information management strategies tailored to address both immediate crises and enduring challenges. Furthermore, especially in austere human rights contexts, I am a recognised authority and trainer, focusing on digital security measures for at-risk activists and journalists.
I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.
I am presently Research Director at the The Disinformation Project in New Zealand, and Special Advisor at the ICT4Peace Foundation in Switzerland.