Jared Cohen
Encyclopedia
Jared Cohen is the Director of Google Ideas, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a non-fiction author. Previously he served as a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and a close advisor to both Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton. Initially brought in by Condoleezza Rice
as the youngest member in history, he was one of the few people kept on under Hillary Clinton. In this capacity, he focused on counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, Middle East/South Asia, Youth, and Technology. According to New York Times Magazine, Cohen was one of the principal architects of what became known as "21st century statecraft." Prior to his work at the State Department, Cohen received his BA from Stanford University
and his M.Phil in International Relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. In September 2010, Cohen was named by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 game changers of the year and by Devex as one of the top 40 people under 40. He is author of the books One Hundred Days of Silence, Children of Jihad, and is co-authoring a book with Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt about how technology is changing international relations.
founder Jack Dorsey, urging the company to reschedule its planned maintenance of the website so that Iranians could keep tweeting. His reasoning was that, given that many other forms of communication had been blocked or shut down, Twitter was one of the only ways for people inside of Iran to get information to the outside world. He also considered it an important way for people around the world to join the protests by disseminating proxy and circumvention tools. When the New York Times broke the story, it came at a time when the Obama administration declared that there would be no meddling in Iran. According to a former Obama administration official, "White House officials were so mad that somebody had actually ‘interfered’ in Iranian politics... [i]f it had been up to the White House, they would have fired him." Previously, Cohen had spent time in Iran and written about the possibility of technology being used for social upheaval in his book Children of Jihad.
According to the Financial Times, Cohen is co-authoring a book with Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, which is due out in 2012 and to be published by Knopf. The book grew out of an article, The Digital Disruption, which the pair published in Foreign Affairs magazine in November 2010 that predicted technology would rewrite the relationship between states and their citizens in the 21st century, and went some way towards predicting the revolutions a few months later in Tunisia and Egypt. The second sentence of the article reads, "Governments will be caught off-guard when large numbers of citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cell phones, take part in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority."
Google
After he left the State Department, Cohen was hired as the director of Google Ideas
, a new branch within Google. Google Ideas is a global initiatives think/do tank run out of New York. Cohen spearheads initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world.
In June 2011, Cohen convened the Summit Against Violent Extremism in Dublin, Ireland, to bring together more than 80 former jihadists, former gang members, former violent far-right fascists, and former violent nationalists. All of them had renounced violence and were actively working to help counter violent extremism. The formers came from countries that included Nigeria, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Libya, El Salvador, the U.S., and dozens of others. They were joined by survivors of terrorism, techies, and academics. Google Ideas also focuses on weak and failed states and issues of democracy and governance.
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
as the youngest member in history, he was one of the few people kept on under Hillary Clinton. In this capacity, he focused on counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, Middle East/South Asia, Youth, and Technology. According to New York Times Magazine, Cohen was one of the principal architects of what became known as "21st century statecraft." Prior to his work at the State Department, Cohen received his BA from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and his M.Phil in International Relations from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. In September 2010, Cohen was named by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 game changers of the year and by Devex as one of the top 40 people under 40. He is author of the books One Hundred Days of Silence, Children of Jihad, and is co-authoring a book with Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt about how technology is changing international relations.
Iran
In the midst of the June 2009 post-election protests in Iran, Cohen sought to support the uprising by reaching out to TwitterTwitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
founder Jack Dorsey, urging the company to reschedule its planned maintenance of the website so that Iranians could keep tweeting. His reasoning was that, given that many other forms of communication had been blocked or shut down, Twitter was one of the only ways for people inside of Iran to get information to the outside world. He also considered it an important way for people around the world to join the protests by disseminating proxy and circumvention tools. When the New York Times broke the story, it came at a time when the Obama administration declared that there would be no meddling in Iran. According to a former Obama administration official, "White House officials were so mad that somebody had actually ‘interfered’ in Iranian politics... [i]f it had been up to the White House, they would have fired him." Previously, Cohen had spent time in Iran and written about the possibility of technology being used for social upheaval in his book Children of Jihad.
State Department, 2006-2010
Cohen served as a Member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff from 2006-2010. He was brought in at the age of 24 years old, making him the youngest person to ever serve in this capacity. He was one of the few members of Policy Planning kept on by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and helped develop what became known as "21st century statecraft." He also played an instrumental role in helping shape counter-radicalization strategies. Beginning in April 2009, Cohen led technology delegations, which focused on connecting technology executives with local stakeholders in Iraq, Russia, Mexico, Congo, and Syria with the aim of developing new and innovative initiatives. Cohen had the third largest number of Twitter followers in the U.S. government behind Barack Obama and John McCain.Books
Cohen is author of several books. His first, One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide, was published in 2006 by Rowman & Littlefield and chronicles U.S. policy toward Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide. His second book, Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East, was published by Penguin Books (Gotham) in October 2007 and has also been published as an audio book and translated into Dutch and Italian. Cohen's work on Children of Jihad was selected as one of the "Best Books of 2007." He is also author of "Iran's Passive Revolution: Is Political Resistance Dead or Alive in Iran? (Hoover Digest), "Iran's Young Opposition: Youth in Post-Revolutionary Iran (SAIS Review), and "Diverting the Radicalization Track" (Policy Review).According to the Financial Times, Cohen is co-authoring a book with Google Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, which is due out in 2012 and to be published by Knopf. The book grew out of an article, The Digital Disruption, which the pair published in Foreign Affairs magazine in November 2010 that predicted technology would rewrite the relationship between states and their citizens in the 21st century, and went some way towards predicting the revolutions a few months later in Tunisia and Egypt. The second sentence of the article reads, "Governments will be caught off-guard when large numbers of citizens, armed with virtually nothing but cell phones, take part in mini-rebellions that challenge their authority."
Google Ideas
Google Ideas, or Ideas is a cross-sector, inter-disciplinary "think tank" or "think/do tank" based in New York City, dedicated to understanding global challenges and applying technological solutions. Google Ideas further positions Google to influence global cultural, political and social issues...
, a new branch within Google. Google Ideas is a global initiatives think/do tank run out of New York. Cohen spearheads initiatives to apply technology solutions to problems faced by the developing world.
In June 2011, Cohen convened the Summit Against Violent Extremism in Dublin, Ireland, to bring together more than 80 former jihadists, former gang members, former violent far-right fascists, and former violent nationalists. All of them had renounced violence and were actively working to help counter violent extremism. The formers came from countries that included Nigeria, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Libya, El Salvador, the U.S., and dozens of others. They were joined by survivors of terrorism, techies, and academics. Google Ideas also focuses on weak and failed states and issues of democracy and governance.