EVENT INVITE – Inside Aleppo: New Tools for Understanding the Syrian Conflict
The American Security Project cordially invites you to a morning discussion:
Inside Aleppo: New Tools for Understanding the Syrian Conflict
February 20, 2014, 8:30-9:30 AM
Moderated by: Stephen A. Cheney, Brigadier General USMC (Ret.)
The American Security Project will host Dr. David Kilcullen and Mr. Nate Rosenblatt of Caerus Associates who will provide a briefing on findings from what may be the most detailed, publicly available assessment of the ongoing conflict in Syria to date.
Findings will be based on four months of in-depth, time-series research from within Aleppo, Syria’s largest, most diverse, and most economically relevant city. Today, Aleppo is one of the most divided cities in the country. Tomorrow, its future may resemble that of other, large, non-capital cities in post-conflict Middle Eastern states such as Libya’s Benghazi or Iraq’s Mosul.
The presentation will examine research findings that suggest that while the national picture in Syria looks bleak, important insights gained at the city-level can help policymakers and scholars think of new ways of examining the trajectory of Syria’s conflict. In addition to findings specific to Syria, the presenters will be joined by Mr. Matt McNabb of First Mile Geo, who will discuss how innovative technologies can be leveraged for collecting, visualizing, and analyzing high-fidelity data from the first mile of conflict affected parts of the world.
Join us for a conversation on the current situation in Syria.
Event will take place at:
American Security Project
1100 New York Ave, NW Washington DC
Seventh Floor, West Tower
Breakfast snacks and refreshments will be served at 8:00am
We hope you can join us.
Please RSVP by Wednesday, February 19th at the following:
Dr. David Kilcullen is the founder and chairman Caerus Associates a research and design firm based in Washington DC. He started Caerus around a simple idea: that responding to the needs of local communities can have mutually beneficial effects for governments, businesses and populations. Before founding Caerus, Dave served 24 years as a soldier, diplomat and policy advisor for the Australian and United States governments. He is the author of several books, including, most recently Out of the Mountains, which focuses on the marginalized slums and complex security threats of the world’s coastal cities.
Nathaniel Rosenblatt leads Caerus’s research and analysis initiatives focusing on the Middle East and Northern Africa. Prior to joining Caerus, Nate spent three years developing research capacity at The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). He received his MA in International Relations with a Middle East concentration from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he wrote his dissertation on opposition politics in Syria. In addition to working at the university, Nate participated as an international elections observer in Iraq’s national elections in March 2010 and co-edited a journal on the impact of the Arab Spring in November 2011.
Matt McNabb is the CEO of First Mile Geo, a cloud-based map and data analytics platform that enables users to collect, manage, visualize, and share data in frontier and emerging markets. As a Principal Investigator on the Syria project, Matt focused on leveraging the First Mile system to enabled research data to be visualized and used to derive these findings. Matt previously served as a Principal with Caerus after founding and running another startup that worked principally in South Asia and Africa doing research with businesses, investors, and government in high threat areas. He is also an Adjuct Fellow with the American Security Project.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN SECURITY PROJECT
The American Security Project is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy and research organization dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of national security issues, promoting debate about the appropriate use of American power, and cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges. For more information, visit www.americansecurityproject.org.
