To harness the potential of technology and to bring young people together to talk about issues regarding education, peace, sustainable development, global citizenship and what these things mean to them in everyday life, UNESCO MGIEP has developed a new online platform: The Knowledge Commons

Designed to promote dialogue and the sharing of ideas, this online platform specifically seeks to engage with young people across the globe to share ideas and practices from their grass-root experiences. The platform aspires to break geographical barriers and differences between disciplines and aims to build a global community of stakeholders in order to create a discourse on peace and sustainable development, which has become more and more relevant to the times in which we live today.

Knowledge Commons, the virtual interactive platform of UNESCO MGIEP, goes live in February 2016 and will bring together contributors and stakeholders from among educationists, policy makers, experts, civil society organisations and, above all else, the youth. It will serve as a converging point where each contributor has a democratic space to share their experiences and views and to interact actively with like-minded people as well as with those from differing points of view. The platform will provide an excellent opportunity for people to forge alliances and collaborate on projects and ideas. The platform will also allow young people to discover the latest news and relevant opportunities in the field of education for peace, sustainable development and global citizenship.

A unique feature of the Knowledge Commons will be to make relevant the plethora of information already available on the web. The platform makes use of cutting edge technology in order to enable the visualisation of latest trends from social media platforms. The moderators will be able to choose relevant themes and pose questions while the platform is equipped to present all permissible data available from the Internet in an interesting visual format. Such visualisations help to elucidate the discussions and debates and over a period of time these will allow the audience to better observe any significant changes in terms of trends and behaviours. The platform is also equipped to analyse dialogues which are taking place on it. This means that all interaction that takes place on the platform on any given topic can be examined by the complex algorithms built into the platform, which is then used to inform research. This feature works on the principle of anonymity with the end result later made public on the platform itself.

Dialogue and the sharing of views is one of the most powerful tools for learning. We tend to learn and absorb more when freely discussing ideas and sharing our experiences.

The need for an online knowledge network

Dialogue and the sharing of views is one of the most powerful tools for learning. We tend to learn and absorb more when freely discussing ideas and sharing our experiences. Peer-to-peer learning can serve as a potent method for overcoming the shared problems of the world today. In today’s densely interconnected world, the problems of one can take little time to spill over and impact a much larger context. In such a scenario, this interconnectedness needs to be utilised for human learning with experience sharing a proven technique that works to resolve our problems. We are encountering new challenges along the path to progress; problems for which we have no ready-made solutions. It is thus imperative that we forge networks of learning and thus build upon one another’s knowledge.

We believe that the youth are the primary stakeholders today and that their opinions need to be heard regarding matters of global significance such as conflict, climate change, poverty and migration.

In this quest to collectively tackle our problems, technology can play a crucial role. Regarding how we understand the most pertinent issues; for instance, what different aspects the problem consists of, existing points of view on the matter, its relevance in different regions, possible solutions and impacts and so on, technology intervenes and guides our quest at each and every step. Technology brings with it efficiency, transparency, and a global outreach, which breaks down barriers of geography, compartmentalised academic disciplines and opinions. The power of social media today makes our connections more visible. It has come to play a crucial role in all aspects of our life, whether in international politics, outer space scientific discoveries or simply the sharing of personal experiences.

How can you contribute?

The efforts of UNESCO MGIEP are especially intended to mobilise the youth. The Institute recognises the dearth of meaningful platforms on which young people can not only express themselves, but in fact lead the dialogue for change. The Institute is making a consistent effort to overcome the problem of “youth-washing” that often occurs in international fora and platforms. The idea that youth is a category that needs to be added to most policy recommendations as an appendage is now considered passé. We believe that the youth are the primary stakeholders today and that their opinions need to be heard regarding matters of global significance such as conflict, climate change, poverty and migration. Problems of a global nature call for an inclusive approach, a democratic mind-set and for innovative thinking that will affect change for the greater good of all.

We are looking for strong voices and radical opinions. We are looking to talk about the issues that most concern you and your surroundings. Consistent dialogue and collaborative efforts amongst global stakeholders is the only way forward if we are to achieve peace and sustainable societies.