OSMOS

❗️NB! DEADLINE EXTENDED! New deadline December 20,2024.

📢 Call for Papers: Join us for the European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 2025) in Prague from June 25–28, 2025!

Our panel “(Post-)Colonial Echoes in Russia’s War Against Ukraine” aims to critically examine the global responses to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, exploring how post-colonial narratives shape international perceptions, alignments, and policy decisions.

🔎 Key themes include (but are not limited):

▪️Global Responses: Examining how diverse international narratives and identities shape perceptions of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
▪️Post-Colonial Perspectives: Analyzing African and Central/Eastern European post-colonial interpretations of the conflict.
▪️Solidarity and Double Standards: Critiquing disparities in global solidarity, particularly in comparison to crises in Africa and the Middle East.
▪️Russia's Self-Positioning: Exploring Russia’s framing as a "non-colonial power" and its imperial implications.
▪️Impact on Global Dynamics: Investigating how identity, historical narratives, and foreign policy shape global conflict responses.

We invite scholars from across disciplines, particularly in political science, international relations, history, and post-colonial studies to submit their papers for the panel.

Join us in discussing ways to bridge African and Eastern European perspectives on contemporary global politics and providing a nuanced understanding of how post-colonial theory informs responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

🗓️Submission Deadline: December 15, 2024
📌Convenors: Lukas Ivanauskas (OSMOS), Patryk I. Labuda (Central European University)
🎙️Chair: Dr.Bonnie Ayodele (Ekiti State University)

🔗👇 Link to submission guidelines in the comments.

Another mission accomplished✅ We couldn't have asked for a better kick-off to our first Iraq-Kurdistan-Lithuania public sector knowledge exchange on data in public services.

A bit more than a week ago, OSMOS and our dear partner Five One Labs, invited a group of public sector leaders from and the to virtually sit down with expert counterparts from Valstybės duomenų agentūra and Valstybės skaitmeninių sprendimų agentūra to examine issues pertinent to data-driven digital transformation and share the best practices which could help governments roll out digital services more effectively.

After a series of welcoming remarks spearheaded by Karolis Žemaitis, Vice-Minister of Economy and Innovation of Lithuania, and H.E. Mohammed Bahr AlUloom, Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, we delved into the most recent digital policy shifts. Distinguished Members of the Steering Committee of Digital Explorers - Iraq Edition took center stage. Mr. Safeen Ghafour, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, presented the redesign of company registration workflow in the and laid out the many legal challenges for seamless collection and sharing of public data, whereas Dr. Hasan Alkhatib, Senior Advisor on Digital Transformation to the Prime Minister of Iraq, gave a comprehensive overview of seven key initiatives: from the development of three cloud-ready data centers to streamlining public service delivery through e-banking platforms.

In the second part of the session, Mr. Vadimas Ivanovas, Head of Division at the State Data Agency, and Dr. Martynas Mockus, PhD, Senior Data Architect at State Digital Solutions Agency, respectively presented the concepts of “data stewardship” and “data mesh,” among other, that are used to guide the ongoing data-governance reforms in Lithuania.

Asked why such an event was needed by Kurdistan Chronicle, our Managing Director Žilvinas noted that “despite different digital maturity levels, seeing many parallels between the digital transformation pathways that Lithuania, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region share, we set the goal to move the bilateral dialogue to a more technical level. Since we are already training a group of young Iraqis in data analytics and are facilitating a dialogue between Sulaimani Polytechnic University زانكۆی پۆلیتەكنیكی سلێمانی (SPU) and Faculty of Informatics at Vytautas Magnus University (Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas) on data science, public data governance was the next thematic area to tackle.”

We're planning to continue these exchanges offline in Lithuania in early 2025, so make sure to watch this space for more. Find more echoes from the event: https://kurdistanchronicle.com/babat/3517

Last but not least❗A special thank you to the members of the EU Delegation to Iraq - Erbil Office , International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) , Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania | iQ Group, whose contributions greatly enriched the discussions.

Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lithuania Initiate a New Chapter in Digital Transformation Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lithuania Initiate a New Chapter in Digital Transformation

Last week, our own Žilvinas briefed OECD Working Party on Migration about Digital Explorers progress in the Baltics, Nigeria, Kenya, Armenia, and Iraq 🌐

As the main forum for better policies improving economic and social well-being of people around the world, OECD served as a perfect setting for debating how skills mobility partnerships like ours can sustainably address global demographic challenges, while investing in up- and reskilling of young populations in emerging economies.

The content-rich day, included perspectives of policy leaders, employers, mobility practitioners, and experts not only from Europe and the U.S., but also from countries like Japan and Australia, where skills mobility schemes have been in action for decades. Experience from the Indo-Pacific thus serves as a source of inspiration for EU states still making early steps in the field🤓

Concluding his intervention, Žilvinas highlighted the whole-of-society approach and the need for small states to work together while meaningfully contributing to healthy global talent circulation in a true spirit of multilateralism.

OECD and International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), thanks for having us, we look forward to continuing the discussion and coming back to Paris soon!