What is Peace Engineering?

Co-Directors Mark Nelson and Margarita Quihuis of the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford define peace engineering and peace innovation and why it is important to reimagine the future of engineering.

In 2018, The World Engineering Education Forum and the Global Engineering Deans Council brought 41 nations, and dozens of universities and companies together for the world’s first Peace Engineering Conference.  As a result, Drexel University, the University of Colorado-Boulder, the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University, the University of New Mexico (UNM) and SensorComm Technologies, Inc. convened to form the Peace Engineering Consortium. The consortium aims to draw from multi-disciplinary principles of science and technology to establish rigorous design principles and processes for safer, more ethical development and deployment of emerging technologies. The goal is to create technology that systematically augments our ability to engage positively with each other while tackling issues like cyber warfare, climate change, poverty, and other conditions that come in the way of long term stability and peace.