Stanford, California - Deputy Secretary Blinken will lead a day-long workshop at Stanford University, “The Hunt for Weapons of Mass Destruction: Leveraging New Technology” on April 7.

This workshop, which will follow the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit hosted by President Obama this week in Washington, will explore the innovative tools we need in the fight against weapons of mass destruction. While new technology is making access to these weapons easier every day, it also provides new opportunities to prevent their spread and verify their destruction. The event will bring together experts from the tech and science community, government, private sector, NGOs, philanthropy, and academia to harness new technology and trends such as microsats, smartphone apps, ubiquitous sensing, crowdsourcing, and data analysis to address this urgent challenge.

The Deputy Secretary will be joined by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller, who leads U.S. State Department efforts to develop 21st century technological tools to meet the arms control challenges of the present and future. Dr. J. William Perry, the Director of Stanford’s Preventive Defense Project who served as the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1994 to 1997, will also participate.

The workshop is co-sponsored by Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Preventive Defense Project, and Technology for Global Security. At the event, Technology for Global Security will announce a one-year Grand Challenge to design the world's best system for countries to confidentially verify that their nuclear weapons and materials are secure at all times.

This is the latest installment in the State Department's Innovation Forum launched in January of this year to convene regular conversations between senior policymakers and global innovators to spark and accelerate new approaches to foreign policy challenges. Through workshops, roundtable discussions, and other events, the Innovation Forum allows the State Department to see more clearly around the innovation corner, while providing others a window into what we are trying to achieve and opportunities to join us.