Hiroshima survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Setsuko Thurlow during her address in Vienna, reflecting on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and her life's work dedicated to peace and nuclear disarmament. © Valerie Maltseva/Agenda Studio
BY Michael Mürling / ON 7 AUGUST, 2026
On 16 June 2026, the PeaceTech Alliance had the honour of helping bring Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, to Vienna for an event we called "Hiroshima's Message for Tech Students and Innovators Today." We hosted it together with SBA Research and the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, and it was moderated by Heather Wokusch, a human rights and nonproliferation advocate who develops digital learning solutions internationally.
Students, young researchers, innovators and members of Austria's growing PeaceTech community joined us to hear Ms Thurlow speak, and to watch the Vienna screening of "The Vow from Hiroshima," a documentary that follows her decades of advocacy which helped secure the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Vienna screening of "The Vow from Hiroshima" presented audiences with Setsuko Thurlow's decades of commitment to nuclear disarmament and her contribution to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. © Valerie Maltseva/Agenda Studio
Ms Thurlow was thirteen years old when she survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Speaking in Vienna eighty years on, she reflected on that experience and on a lifetime spent campaigning for a world free of nuclear weapons. What stayed with me most was how she challenged the room to imagine security not as domination through fear, but as a shared human endeavour built on cooperation, justice, international law and human dignity.
Nathan Coyle, cofounder of the PeaceTech Alliance, put it well: "PeaceTech is nothing without lived experience. If the tech doesn't reflect the peacebuilder, it is pointless. Setsuko Thurlow is not just a figurehead of this field; she is a seasoned campaigner dedicated to making nuclear weapons a thing of the past, so I could not resist asking her what her message would be to those who wish to build PeaceTech. At the PeaceTech Alliance, we always say 'people first, tech second.' It is one thing to talk about putting lived experience at the heart of design, but events like this are where we put it into practice. We want to position the peacebuilders, not the tech developers, at the forefront, giving them the platform to craft what PeaceTech should look like in the future."
As part of my role at the AIT Center for Digital Safety & Security, I became a cofounder because I believe technological progress and societal responsibility have to go hand in hand. Too often, conversations about emerging technologies happen without enough involvement from people and communities with lived experience of conflict, or from those working directly in peacebuilding. By bringing together research, diplomacy, society and future generations, evenings like this one are exactly how we try to make sure innovation actually serves people and contributes to a more peaceful and resilient future.
When we asked what message she would like Austria's next generation of developers and innovators to carry into future PeaceTech ecosystems, Ms Thurlow's answer was simple and direct: "Remember your own humanity."
One of the moments that affected me most came near the end of the evening, when Ms Thurlow unfurled a yellow banner bearing the names of her classmates who were killed in the bombing. It was a quiet, physical reminder that behind every statistic of conflict is a name, a person, a life.
In a powerful and beautiful moment, Setsuko Thurlow shared a yellow banner bearing the names of her classmates who were killed in the bombing. © Valerie Maltseva/Agenda Studio
For me, this is the whole point of the work we do at the Alliance. It is a reminder that the humanitarian consequences of conflict cannot be understood through data alone, and that the future of PeaceTech has to be shaped by the people who have lived through what it is trying to prevent.
A huge thank you to Setsuko Thurlow, SBA Research, and everyone who helped bring this event together.