Key features of the problem [1]: - In 1947 British India is partitioned into India and Pakistan. The rulers of ‘princely states’ are to choose whether to accede to India or Pakistan. The Maharaja Hari Singh is the Hindu ruler of Muslim-majority Kashmir. - The Maharaja accedes control to India. The case is referred to the UN which recommends holding a referendum/plebiscite in the region, after a ceasefire has been reached. - The plebiscite was never held. India maintains this is because Pakistan did not withdraw its troops from the region, as the UN resolution required. Pakistan believes that India's claim to the land is invalid and a plebiscite should be held. - There are three main wars that form the conflict (1947, 1965, and 1999) and estimates of the death toll sit at around 80,000+. - Read more in the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflict

In tech, we often lament about how many start ups seem to be working on trivial problems (e.g. on-demand food delivery apps, web scraper/aggregators), rather than difficult, long-standing, real world problems. I've also heard people implicitly or explicitly express the idea that technological innovation will be able to solve almost any problem on the planet.

Given these two premises I was wondering if we could here collectively brainstorm possible ways in which the kinds of technological progress made over the past few decades could make a difference in a present, concrete, real-world problem that exists in the world today - peace between India and Pakistan.

Of course, this is a highly complex, diplomatic problem that doesn't have a "solution", but given the kind of access we have to "disruptive", "ground-breaking" technology, is this something we can make progress on, and if so how?

References: [1] https://www.amazon.com/Kashmir-Case-Freedom-Arundhati-Roy/dp/1844677354