Changemakers's "Entrepreneuring Peace" Collaborative Competition invites and showcases projects with innovative, high-impact strategies for anticipating and managing intense group conflict and violence that afflicts societies throughout the world.

The "Entrepreneuring Peace" Collaborative Competition accepts entries online until January 10, 2007. All entries are transparently displayed on the site so that this online community can view them, post their comments and questions, and help spread their impact.

The term "entrepreneuring" was chosen for this collaborative competition to challenge conventional frameworks for conflict resolution that can often be reactive and fragmented. "Entrepreneuring" refers to unique innovations that help conflict resolution organizations spot and act upon limited windows of opportunity before situations spiral out of control. Because conflict resolution organizations—unlike many other traditional development fields—operate with limited time to manage conflicts, they need support from a community that can provide resources with agility and flexibility.

The "Entrepreneuring Peace" collaborative competition is searching for committed, high-impact innovators that have strategies to create fundamental building blocks for enduring peace in multiple contexts so their work can be spread and scaled-up to different locations and situations. The Changemakers online community encourages these leading innovators to reach out and collaborate with partners that will help spread their work and impact. The community works to influence investors, policy makers, and other thought leaders to focus on supporting these innovators.

An Entrepreneuring Peace "mosaic" of insights serves as an intellectual framework that sets the context for each Changemakers Collaborative Competition. At a glance, the mosaic maps the most powerful emerging principles of innovation against the underlying factors that drive a problem (see descriptions in the next section). The mosaic provides a starting point for the community to build, uncover new insights, and take collective action. It helps social innovators see how their work fits into a larger picture and demonstrates that the collective impact of solutions is greater than the sum of the individual projects. The mosaic emphasizes that no single solution is the answer—those working on conflict resolution must work with others to create holistic communities of action.

The collaborative competition begins connecting innovators to a community resources through an "Entrepreneuring Peace" judges panel that includes representatives from Humanities United, Peace Direct, the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, and entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari. These judges will review the competition entries and select a group of finalists that will be announced and hosted at the Skoll World Forum in late March 2007. This event provides an opportunity for the peace entrepreneurs to spread their work and to connect with key resources and knowledge that will help them scale-up their operations.

The Changemakers community will select three overall competition winners from the finalists through an open online vote, and each winner will receive an award of US$5,000. All entries will be archived online, creating a resource bank of solutions that addresses each stage of group conflict. After the winners are announced, Changemakers will continue to host and connect an ongoing community of conflict resolution innovators, investors, and supporters.

Barriers

Lack of empathy. Warring groups or gangs have no sense of their enemy as human, sentient, entitled to rights and happiness, as they consider themselves. This lack of basic compassion is also the root of prejudice and discrimination, the building blocks of many forms of conflict. This inability to see oneself in another hardens the heart to hearing another side of the story, a perspective outside one's own. This dehumanization of the other also allows groups to "justify" violence and killing.

Culture of violence. Societies torn by civil war, cities wracked by gang warfare all create "bunker" mentalities among a citizenry characterized by personal trauma, perpetual fear and belief that one is powerless to change the situation. Historical precedent of "solving" conflict through violence perpetuates an endless cycle of "justified" revenge.

Group-based inequities. Discrimination that becomes systemic leads to significant imbalances in rights, resources and the spoils of society. That unfairness lays the foundation for resentment both on the part of the oppressors, as well as a mentality of scarcity that encourages the dominant group to perpetuate the status quo.

Corrupt or inept government and public systems. Failures of the system to render justice, equal services or timely remediation lead citizens to take issues into their own hands or may shore up discriminatory beliefs and practices. In many cases, unscrupulous leaders exploit prejudices of the population to incite or perpetuate violence that serves their political or personal gain.

Principles

Humanize the "other." Getting warring factions to see their enemies as similar to themselves is the core component of peace, making true dialogue and collaboration possible. In some cases, that also means empowering disenfranchised groups to think of their own solutions.

Create alternate systems. Community based tribunals, alternative education programs; even a new system to document government abuses can counterbalance the failures of traditional systems. In some cases, reform of current systems is possible simultaneously.

Explore original wounds. Digging into individual traumas, historic ill-treatment of groups, dynamics of prejudice, and exposing injustice can all lead to a kind of healing that releases bitterness and long-held beliefs.

Create communities of peace/resistance. Communities trained with specific conflict-resolution tools, acquainted with the mutual benefit of cooperation and armed with tactics to defuse heated situations, are more likely to find ways to avoid violent conflict.

Build non-violent pathways to rights, equality and assets. Options must exist for bettering one's circumstances outside of violent means.

Participants in the Changemakers "Entrepreneuring Peace" Collaborative Competition are competing for the Innovation Award by submitting projects with innovative, high-impact strategies for anticipating and managing intense group conflict and violence. Finalists will be selected by a panel of judges, and the Changemakers online community will vote to select three winners who will each receive a $5,000 prize. All finalists will be hosted at the Skoll World Forum in late March 2007.

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