Graduate Students Launch Platform to Foster Innovation in Peacekeeping

When Gal Bar Dea closes his eyes, he imagines "peace in a Google world," led by young people with Twitter and Facebook accounts, YouTube capabilities, study-abroad experience and international circles of friends. Bar Dea's dream is closer than those of most about-to-be graduates. The 30-year-old budding entrepreneur from Tel Aviv, who is receiving his M.B.A. this month from Columbia Business School , launched an initiative last September called Students Participating in Resolving International Tensions, or SPIRIT. This online platform allows young people with fresh ideas and diverse backgrounds to propose alternative strategies for bringing peace to communities in conflict. It has already received an imprimatur from the United Nations. A veteran of the Israeli army, Bar Dea said he lost faith watching an older generation repeatedly fail to bring peace to his part of the world.