With Her Majesty Queen Noor Al Hussein and Tara Sonenshine, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy

On October 15th, iEARN-USA will be joining with partners at Global Nomads Group and Soliya for a special event at the United States Institute of Peace, "Exchange 2.0: The Science of Impact, the Imperative of Implementation."

This event will be webcast live beginning at 2:00pm EDT on October 15, 2012 at www.usip.org/webcast. Online viewers will be able to engage panelists and each other through live chat and Twitter discussions (Hashtag: #exchange20)

Exchange 2.0 is a critical next step in international education and exchange that leverages the power of new technologies to vastly increase the number and diversity of students who have a profound cross-cultural experience as part of their education. The pressing need to multiply constructive people-to-people connections and build bridges across divided cultures is clear. And yet, in recent years, the pressure to expand exchange opportunities has collided with a resource-constrained environment in which all programming outside core priorities has come under renewed scrutiny.

Virtual exchange provides a possible solution: high-impact, affordable, cross-cultural exchange programs with the potential to reach the more than 98 percent of young adults who will not participate in a physical exchange or study abroad program.

At this event, policy-makers, funders, researchers and program implementers from the Exchange 2.0 coalition will meet to present and discuss new research that demonstrates the shift away from hostile attitudes that virtual exchange programs can produce. These experts will also explore opportunities for public-private collaborations to scale up this untapped resource for reaching out to publics in countries where relations are strained and long term conflict management strategies are needed.

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