WinC, a tool for NATO cross-cultural skills development

[Serge.Dadeppo]

One of the topics addressed during the Human Environment Capabilities Event in June was the need to provide the military personnel with the right mindset and skills to understand and interact with the Human Environment. In search for ways to address this issue, members of the US Penn State University informed the audience of a tool they use to develop cross-cultural skills among their students. It calls World in Conversation (WinC). Since then, Penn State U and NATO Transformation Command (ACT) have been exploring the potential military application of WinC; and they eventually agreed on a way ahead for collaboration.

The idea
World in Conversation is a platform that allows to engage in an online video conversation with people from a different culture. The conversations are semi-structured and coached in order to achieve the educational objective : develop cross-cultural skills. While NATO ACT has assessed that the use of WinC by military personnel would contribute to the development of the needed skills, Penn State U has accepted to discuss with candidate NATO nations the adjustment of WinC to their specific national needs.

The door is now open to skill development

Find more information about WinC here:

link to World in Conversation Portal
link to WinC Trailer

[samuelrichards]

Members of the A Team:
We have been expanding our video dialogues between our students here at Penn State and students in other countries -- mostly the Middle East (Iran, Gaza, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar) but also in other location (e.g., Haiti). We will be moving onto other countries as well, but are simply waiting for the space to clear up in our schedules to do more of this work.

Each one of these dialogues is 90 minutes long and involves have one of our trained facilitators present, as well as translators at both ends where necessary. We base all of our work on the Socratic Method -- we ask questions and don't tell people what to think. It's always best if people walk into new ideas on their own and are not pushed into them. Our MISSION is to "facilitate radically open dialogues that expand perspectives and invite greater understanding between people--locally and globally." Our VISION is that "facilitated dialogue will revolutionize cross cultural relationships by transforming conflict into collaboration."

We sponsor over 1,300 face-to-face of these 90 minute groups each year at Penn State and another 500 video dialogues. But the video dialogues will grow exponentially next year.

That said, our idea is to use facilitated dialogue to have students at NATO military academies engage students in countries where they might conceivably (one day) deploy. Start the dialogue long before they get on the ground. There is considerably interest in the Middle East for this to happen. More on that later.