Phase 1 Dialogue Reflection#
The main reason I joined this dialogue was to learn how an interdisciplinary background can drive intelligent innovation to solve complex problems. My experience in this dialogue has met and even exceeded my expectations.
One of the most inspirational conversations that I had was during our visit to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) where we discussed NATO’s threats to national security.
During this conversation I learned about the objectives of NATO and how those objectives have shifted due to the emerging landscape. I was able to grasp the importance of NATO mitigating their macroenvironments in order to make sure that security is at its peak.
It was interesting to learn about how the shift in disruptive technologies has truly shifted how NATO has to respond to certain threats and problems.Even though I enjoy discussing the positive effects of technology, this conversation made me realize that it is equally important to talk about the downsides as well. More specifically the threat of misinformation has become a serious problem that divides previously united communities resulting in a threat in security. Making me reflect on the responsibility that I have towards society as an aspiring software engineer. As someone who wants my work to benefit society, I realized I need to learn more about how technologies can combat these issues.
With the topic of national security we were able to discuss the problems of misinformation and climate change. During our visit to the European Union External Action we expanded on the more technological terms of misinformation. Learning about the Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference framework and how the EEAS has confronted this problem was interesting to learn, since I wasn’t aware of the severity of misinformation as a threat to national security.
During our time at NATO, we discussed the impacts of climate change on national security, through how it impacts migration when communities are unprepared for its effects.
This led to my ideation in making our project have a climate change focus. Initially, I considered a project connecting climate change to migration, but through research we found a more concrete idea involving user input.
I was able to research and find sources within the EUEA that could be used in the future for when our project further develops. Through writing the user personas for NGOs I was able to find numerous ways that our project could help NGOs further their impact which was very inspirational in knowing that this app could be used to make NGOs efforts slightly easier.
In summary, this dialogue has provided me with an opportunity to expand my technological knowledge and learn how my skills can be applied to real world problems. Learning more about European culture has helped me learn about the differences and relations between countries, expanding my perspective of communication methods they use. This dialogue experience has given me hope and has ignited my passion for finding ways that technology can be used to address problems that may have been hard to solve previously.