Peace Pulse
Peace Pulse is IYAP’s international youth learning series designed to help young people understand how peaceful, resilient and inclusive societies are built—and how changing global challenges are reshaping peacebuilding. Following its first learning cohort in 2025, Peace Pulse returns in 2026 with a new focus on Peacebuilding & Artificial Intelligence, exploring how AI and emerging technologies can influence conflict, dialogue, information, inclusion and peace.
Mission
To connect young people with practitioners, researchers and specialists through evidence-informed learning, reflection and practical engagement across traditional and emerging dimensions of peacebuilding.
Vision
Young people equipped with the knowledge, critical thinking and agency to understand changing peace and conflict dynamics and contribute responsibly to peaceful and inclusive societies.
One Programme. Evolving Conversations on Peace.
Peacebuilding is constantly changing. Peace Pulse therefore evolves with each cohort rather than repeating the same curriculum. Batch 1 established the foundations by helping young people understand peace beyond the absence of conflict—through systems, wellbeing, belonging, ecological threats, data, youth participation and lived experience. Batch 2 takes the learning into a rapidly changing area: the relationship between peacebuilding, artificial intelligence and emerging technology. Each cohort explores a distinct theme while remaining grounded in Peace Pulse’s core approach: learn, question, reflect, apply and engage.
How Peace Pulse Works
Peace Pulse is a live and participatory learning experience rather than a recorded online course. Selected participants will join 10 live online sessions, engage with facilitators and peers, complete weekly reflections and post-session activities, and undertake a community engagement activity. Participants are expected to commit actively to the full learning journey. Session recordings will not be distributed.
Who Should Participate?
No technical or AI background is required. Peace Pulse is looking for young people with curiosity, commitment and a genuine interest in understanding how technology intersects with peacebuilding, communities and society.
Program Phases
Batch 1 — Foundations of Peace
Learning Peace Beyond the Absence of Conflict
Duration: 2025 | 8 Sessions
Peace Pulse Batch 1 brought together young people from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal for an eight-session learning journey.
Participants explored Positive Peace, ecological threats, wellbeing and belonging, conflict narratives, youth participation, systems and evidence-based peace communication.
Beyond the live sessions, participants applied learning through climate–peace reflections, empathy exercises, advocacy messages, trust conversations, social-media engagement and data-driven storytelling.
What Batch 1 Taught Us
Batch 1 was also a learning process for IYAP.
Participant feedback and post-session activities showed the value of combining expert learning with reflection and practical application. They also highlighted the need for stronger participant tracking, deeper interaction and more comparable pre- and post-programme assessment.
These lessons have informed the design of Batch 2, with a stronger emphasis on active participation, applied learning and engagement with one of the most rapidly evolving areas affecting contemporary peacebuilding: artificial intelligence.
Key Activities
Impact
Completed. Participants explored peace through systems, evidence, lived experience and youth participation and demonstrated learning through reflection and practical post-session activities.
Batch 2 — Peacebuilding & Artificial Intelligence
Exploring Peace in the Age of Emerging Technology
Duration: September–November 2026 | 10 Sessions
Batch 2 explores how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are changing the environments in which peacebuilding takes place.
Participants will critically examine AI, misinformation, algorithmic bias, digital harms, PeaceTech, digital mediation, ethics, human rights and emerging approaches to conflict prevention while considering how young people can engage with these technologies responsibly.
Key Activities
Impact
Follow the Peace Pulse Journey
8
Interactive Sessions
4
Countries Represented
2025
First Peace Pulse Cohort
Peace Pulse Batch 2: Peacebuilding & Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is changing how information is created, how narratives spread, how communities communicate and how decisions are made. These technologies can support dialogue, analysis and conflict prevention—but they can also amplify misinformation, exclusion, bias and harm. Batch 2 creates an international learning space for young people to examine these questions critically and explore how emerging technology can be approached responsibly through a peacebuilding lens.
10
Interactive Sessions
7:30–9:00 PM Sri Lanka Time
Tuesdays
15 September 2026
Programme Begins
Up to 100
Selected Participants
Online Learning Cohort
International
What You Will Gain
Understand AI and emerging technologies through a peacebuilding lens.
Examine ethical, human-rights and inclusion challenges surrounding AI.
Recognise misinformation, algorithmic bias, hate speech and emerging digital harms.
Explore PeaceTech and technology-enabled approaches to dialogue and social cohesion.
Understand digital mediation and emerging approaches to conflict prevention.
Translate learning into practical ideas for youth and community peacebuilding.
Follow the Journey
Peace is not simply something we study; it is something we practise. Through learning, critical reflection, and community engagement, Peace Pulse encourages young people to translate knowledge into meaningful action and contribute to more informed, inclusive, and peaceful communities.
Programme Facilitators
Meet the facilitators that make the Peace Pulse possible!
Dr. Sidra Ahmed
Program Facilitator
Dr. Sidra Ahmed is an academic, researcher, trainer, and policy analyst with a PhD in International Relations. Her expertise spans diplomacy, decolonial perspectives, identity, emerging global affairs, strategic communication, and conflict resolution. She teaches at undergraduate and graduate levels and contributes to academic program development. She is President and founding member of the Centre for Alternative Perspectives (CAP) and Oversight Lead of CGAPA. A published researcher and media analyst, she also facilitates leadership, negotiation, critical thinking, and capacity-building programmes.
Programme Partners
Peace Pulse is strengthened through collaboration with organisations and networks supporting youth participation, peacebuilding, learning and international exchange.
European Youth Parliament (EYP) | Outreach Partner
Young Women of Africa
Peace Education and Practice Network (PEPNET)
Prospect Initiative