A collective dedicated to making Peace Tech accessible to those who need it the most — the individuals and organisations working tirelessly in communities around the world to foster peace and change.
Learn More About The PeaceTech Alliance
What is important to us
We're a non-profit, non-commercial community of peacebuilders, researchers, diplomats, humanitarians, civil society actors and technologists, convened through universities and peace institutions in Austria.
Beyond Austria, we've engaged directly with the OSCE, the United Nations (UNODA Geneva and the UN Cyber Hub), EU institutions in Brussels, and peacebuilding networks including EPLO and the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. Community and peacebuilder voices lead every conversation, not institutional agendas.
PeaceTech spans everything from AI and satellite systems to community radio, open data platforms and immersive training tools. That breadth is a strength, but also a risk: if PeaceTech can mean everything, it risks meaning nothing.
We stay deliberately sceptical of technology-first and market-led approaches that prioritise scale or visibility over community need. Instead, we're guided by the principle of Do No Harm and co-design with the peacebuilders who will actually use these tools, in the low-bandwidth, real-world conditions they work in.
Much of the technology now shaping peacebuilding, from AI to satellite systems, was originally built for commercial, security or defence use before being adapted for civilian settings. This dual-use, and increasingly triple-use, reality is something we approach with care.
We ground our work in data sovereignty and local ownership, drawing on Austria's leadership in Gaia-X federated dataspaces, and by publishing open, peer-reviewed research, including a survey of 211 peacebuilding practitioners across the Global South and our own dataset mapping where AI compute, training data and conflict actually sit.
Looking outward
Austria has a long tradition of neutrality, dialogue and multilateral diplomacy — from hosting the OSCE and United Nations institutions in Vienna, to decades of quiet mediation work most people never hear about. The PeaceTech Alliance builds on that tradition, creating a trusted, non-aligned space where peacebuilders, researchers, diplomats and technologists can work through the hard questions around technology and conflict, without a single country, company or security agenda shaping the answers.
The Alliance is hosted by the Center for Digital Safety & Security at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, which provides a physical base in Vienna and contributes its expertise in digital sovereignty and decentralised infrastructure, including through Austria's coordination of Gaia-X. But the Alliance itself is collectively shaped by universities, peace organisations and not-for-profit partners across the country — its direction isn't set by AIT alone.
Though rooted in Austria's values of neutrality and multilateralism, our outlook is global. We host events like the International Digital Security Forum (IDSF) and take part in the wider peacebuilding and digital governance conversation, working to make sure peacebuilders underrepresented in global tech systems — particularly across the Global South — have a genuine say in the tools built to serve them.
From Vienna to conflict-affected regions worldwide, we're focused on building trust and local ownership, not just deploying technology for its own sake.
activating communities
PeaceTech has enormous potential to support those working on the frontlines of peace. But to realise that potential, we need to reflect on where things aren’t working as well as they could. Too often, tools are developed in ways that don't fully reflect the realities of peacebuilders themselves—leading to solutions that may be innovative in theory, but less effective in practice.
Many initiatives are still shaped by priorities and perspectives from the Global North, while the experiences and insights of those in the Global South remain underrepresented—not just in design processes, but in the data that informs the tools themselves. This creates a disconnect between where PeaceTech is built and where it is most urgently needed.
The PeaceTech Alliance aims to help rebalance that equation. We draw from civic tech values—accessibility, co-creation, and openness—to support peacebuilders as partners in the design and application of technology. By widening who gets to shape PeaceTech, we’re working toward tools that are not only technically robust, but also trusted, grounded, and relevant to the communities they’re meant to serve.
The PeaceTech Alliance is an independent network of universities, peace organisations and NGOs working together across Austria. It is collectively shaped by its participating organisations and is not owned or controlled by AIT.
The Alliance is hosted by the Center for Digital Safety & Security at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. AIT provides the Alliance with a physical base in Vienna and invests staff time, expertise and institutional resources in its development. This support helps bring together peacebuilders, researchers, policymakers and technology specialists, while contributing to the responsible development of digital solutions for peace across Austria.
AIT and Gaia-X Hub Austria participate in the Alliance alongside its other member organisations. Through its role as host and active contributor, AIT gives the Alliance the practical foundation, technical capacity and long-term support needed to turn collaboration into action.
Learn more: ait.ac.at/dss | gaia-x.at
The PeaceTech Alliance brings together peacebuilders, diplomats, researchers, civic technology leaders, policymakers and digital specialists from organisations across Austria. Its strength lies in connecting expertise from universities, peace organisations, NGOs and technology institutions to develop a more responsible, practical and people-centred approach to PeaceTech.
This network combines academic knowledge, peacebuilding experience, policy expertise and technical capability, creating opportunities for collaboration across sectors and supporting the development of digital solutions that respond to real peacebuilding needs.
