Dickover leaves State for Institute of Peace

Noel Dickover, the State Department's Office of eDiplomacy guru for the past three years and one of the coordinators largely responsible for its successful TechCamps program, left last week to begin a new position with the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). He started in the new position on July 29.

Dickover announced the move on Twitter, saying he had a "terrific 3 years" at State and that he was looking forward to working on USIP's Peace-Tech Lab. He started at the State Department on July 1, 2010.

Dickover told FCW his work at USIP will focus on using low-cost technology like crowdsourcing to build peace and help stabilize social culture, particularly in developing countries.

"It gives me an opportunity to build technology for social good ecosystems in developing countries," Dickover said.

USIP is an independent, federally funded nonpartisan institution established by Congress to help manage international conflicts without violence.

Dickover is highly respected for his work at the Office of eDiplomacy, earning a Fed 100 award in 2012 for his efforts training grassroots organizations all over the world and increasing their digital capacity through interactive TechCamp meetings.

His efforts in organizing and executing TechCamps in places including Thailand, Israel, India, the Ukraine, Moldova and Zanzibar empowered nongovernmental organizations to adopt tech-savvy approaches to issues pertaining to disaster response, economy opportunity, empowering women and in some cases, democracy.

"Technologists love to be Superman," Dickover told FCW in a 2012 interview. "The TechCamp format gives them that opportunity."

State offered no insight on who might replace Dickover.