Projects & Courses

Since its founding, the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab has built a continuous tradition of experimenting with emerging technologies to prototype new forms of collaboration across conflict and difference boundaries. From PeaceDot to Manor Labs, from Cloud to Street to Turban Myths, our projects helped define the early fields of peace tech and peace engineering, shaping how researchers, practitioners, and policymakers think about the role of technology in fostering prosocial behavior.

At the same time, Peace Innovation is a continuous practice: the methods we pioneered — collaborative ideation, light prototyping, behavior design, and open innovation — are still at the heart of our work today. We apply them in executive education, corporate training, and, most recently, in exploring how AI can be designed not merely for efficiency, but to unlock humanity’s collective ability to imagine, design, and invent across difference boundaries.

Case Studies & Projects

  • PeaceDot (2009)
    Over 50 organizations, from Facebook to the Dalai Lama Foundation, created peace subdomains highlighting their contributions to peace.

  • peace.facebook.com (2009)
    Partnered with Facebook to measure friending across conflict boundaries such as Israelis and Palestinians, producing one of the earliest real-time “peace data” streams.

  • Manor Labs, Texas (2009–2011)
    Piloted one of the first municipal innovation labs in the U.S., crowdsourcing ideas from citizens, implementing solutions, and becoming a national model recognized by the White House.

  • Citizen Diplomacy Campaigns (2012)
    Designed entrepreneurial solutions to increase positive engagement across conflict boundaries, including Israel Loves Iran and Romancing the Border.

  • Cloud to Street (2011)
    Partnered with Egyptian democracy activists, Stanford students, and Silicon Valley innovators during the Arab Spring to create civic tools for constitutional reform and election monitoring.

  • Turban Myths (2013)
    Groundbreaking SALDEF/Stanford study reframing Sikh American identity in post-9/11 America, one of the most widely cited reports on Sikh American experiences.

  • Peace Entrepreneurs in Residence (2015–2017)
    Incubator program supporting PeaceTech founders tackling food, water, energy, gender, and security challenges; alumni include ReGen Villages and Aggregator.

  • Addressing Gender Bias in the Workplace (2019)
    Applied Peace Data frameworks to show how men and women treat each other differently at work and linked behavior patterns to productivity outcomes.

  • Unexpected PeaceTech (2019)
    Partnered with Designed Privacy to apply behavior design to cybersecurity training. Results showed not only reduced phishing vulnerability but also spillover prosocial behaviors at work and home.

  • Santander Nordics Transformation (2018–2020)
    Partnered with Santander Consumer Bank Nordics to embed innovation capacity and responsible banking through behavior design and peace innovation frameworks. Outcomes included faster product cycles, cost reductions, and early ESG-aligned financial instruments.

  • PeaceX Co-Op Venture Studio (2020–2022)
    Collaboration with Drexel University that trained three cohorts of students in behavior design and peace innovation fundamentals. Students applied these tools to real-world challenges, creating new PeaceTech prototypes and venture concepts.

Courses, Workshops & Executive Education

Chronological highlights of our teaching and applied innovation programs:

  • 2014 – Getting to Trust in Conflict Environments (Stanford d.school, Fall 2014)

  • 2014–2015 – Peace Innovation Workshops (Aalborg, Bogotá, Oddsherred, Santa Cruz, The Hague)

  • 2015 – Peace Innovation Summer Institute (The Hague)

  • 2015–2016 – Rapid Experimental Deal Design (REDD) Workshops (Oslo, Finland, The Hague)

  • 2016–Present – Executive Education for Corporations & Visiting Delegations

    • Fundamentals of Behavior Design and Game Design Thinking for Creating Extraordinary Customer Experiences

    • Culture by Design: Innovation Transformation Workshops

  • 2017 – Design for Discovery: Peace Innovation (Stanford)

  • 2017 – CS50: CS for Good – Peace Data Dashboard (Stanford)

  • 2017 – Design as Discovery: Peace Technology & Design Thinking (Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies)

  • 2018 – Dash Design Hackathon: PeaceTech (Applied peace innovation to gender dynamics in tech)