The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Harriman Institute Present: 

 

Inside the Information War: Building Societal Resilience Against Disinformation

 

Event Details:

Thursday, March 5, 2026

4:15pm-5:45pm

1219 International Affairs Building

Register for in-person attendance HERE

Register for the Zoom webinar HERE

 

Speakers:

Valeria Kovtun, Obama Scholar; Strategic Partnerships Lead, OpenMinds; Founder and Former Head, Filter

Tamar Mitts, Associate Professor, School of International and Public Affairs; Faculty Member, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Institute of Global Politics, Data Science Institute, Columbia University

Moderated by Elise Giuliano, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Director of the MARS-REERS Program, Director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations, Harriman Institute, Columbia University

 

Event Description:

For over a decade, Valeria Kovtun has dedicated her work to advancing media education, shaping strategies against disinformation, and leveraging technology to safeguard societies from authoritarian threats. Her most transformative journey in this field began when she left London and the BBC to launch Ukraine’s first governmental media literacy program. What followed was three years of building from scratch. She founded and directed Filter, Ukraine’s national media literacy institution, an organization which designed and implemented public interventions that reached millions of Ukrainians daily, building resilience against disinformation at one of the most critical moments in the country’s history. She has advised UNDP, IREX, OSCE, Radio Free Europe, British Council, and Zinc Network on designing national programs for countering information threats at scale. Most recently, she led strategic partnerships at OpenMinds in London, delivering threat intelligence and response services to more than 30 governments and organizations. Her work focused on helping European and US partners understand and respond to information threats, in particular in contested and hard-to-access environments. Kovtun holds an MSc from London School of Economics and fellowships from Chevening and the UN. Currently, as an Obama Scholar at Columbia University, she is exploring how arts and innovation can be leveraged to strengthen democracies and build societal resilience worldwide.