ABOUT THE FOUNDER / INTERNATIONAL WORK
Founder & CEO of Global Mediation Team · Boulder, Colorado
View Raju’s LinkedIn profile ↗
Raju founded Global Mediation Team in 2017. His work focuses on dialogue, global peace and security, and digital tools that may help people connect across conflict. The Kashmir Initiative brings those interests together in a carefully facilitated Global Social Witnessing program drawing on established practice with Kashmiri and diaspora communities.
His background combines public affairs, international economics, mediation training, and an interest in trauma-aware practice. The initiative’s 108-facilitator training goal remains a proposal; the biography below distinguishes documented public programs from background supplied in Raju’s résumé.
Raju facilitated a virtual session on peace in Kashmir, reconciliation, global presence and witnessing. The Carter School listing gives the session time as 2:00–3:30 p.m. ET on Friday, September 26.
View official program ↗He appeared on the program for a conversation about reconciliation through Global Social Witnessing, psychosocial healing and diaspora engagement.
View official program ↗On September 21, the International Day of Peace and the first anniversary of his mother’s passing, Raju took part in a program with the United Nations exploring how virtual reality could be used for peace. Later that year, Global Mediation Team organized a session at NYU’s Data for Peace Conference, where NYU’s Center on International Cooperation listed Raju as a speaker.
Watch the September 2023 program video ↗View NYU conference program ↗In a Conflict Resolution Alliance presentation, Raju compared peacebuilding with making a film: many people with different skills must coordinate toward a shared result. His event description asked why peace in a place like Kashmir takes time, how competing aims or political decisions can disrupt the work, and whether an interdisciplinary approach using digital tools could be adapted by other peacemakers. This is a proposed way to think about conflict resolution, drawn from the event description and résumé he supplied.
The details in this section come from Raju’s résumé supplied for this site. Membership, training, and conference participation do not imply that an institution sponsors the Kashmir Initiative.
Master of Public Affairs, with a focus on international economics, LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin (1987); B.A., Plan II Honors Program, University of Texas at Austin (1980).
His résumé lists memberships with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, Mediators Beyond Borders, the United Nations Association of the USA, and the VR/AR Association’s VR for Good and storytelling committees. It also lists participation in Geneva Peace Week, Rotary global peace conferences, and Carter School Peace Weeks.
His résumé lists basic and family mediation training, hospice care training, and a Pocket Project scholarship for trauma-informed leadership self-study. Earlier wellness facilitation informs his interest in compassionate, human-led spaces.
THE KASHMIR INITIATIVE
The initiative is still being shaped with potential partners and community guidance. Its plans for future facilitators, university training and funding are not confirmed programs.
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