We are pleased to invite you to join us October 21–22, 2026, in Palo Alto, California, for a workshop on open source analysis and its potential for verification and monitoring.
The workshop is hosted at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.
This 1.5-day workshop aims to catalyze the development of new, open source, technical solutions to hard problems in strategic verification and monitoring. It will convene a small group of leading experts and stakeholders to define this challenge in ways that inspire new research and develop new collaborations.
The workshop will inform a new prize competition, led by the Global Risks Fund, for building and demonstrating new technical solutions with OSINT for verification and monitoring.
Open source verification is being transformed by a set of technologies that have matured in recent years. High-cadence commercial satellite imagery now images sites daily and, with SAR, in any weather, day or night. AI and machine learning can sift that imagery and other open data—energy use, shipping, sensor feeds—for the anomalies and patterns no analyst could track at scale. A great deal of what once required inspectors or classified national systems can increasingly be done from open sources. These capabilities are arriving faster than the field is putting them to use. This project is designed to help close that gap.
For those who are not local, organizers will arrange and pay for your stay at The Graduate by Hilton Palo Alto; nonrefundable, roundtrip economy-class airfare; ground transportation to and from the workshop; and meals during the event.
Please RSVP with Accept or Regret by September 10.
If you have any questions about the content of the event, don’t hesitate to reach out to Luisa Kenausis (lkenausis@stanleycenter.org). Please direct travel questions to Eleanore Taft (etaft@stanleycenter.org), and other logistics questions to Nicole Marchese (nmarchese@stanleycenter.org).