Part One of the World Legal Summit just completed on Aug 1st 2019. The World Legal Summit (#WLS2019) this inaugural year is an experiment. Like any experiment it was born from a hypothesis that stemmed from the acceptance of a few basic tenants: 

  1. Globally we have growing challenges around tech governance and dire need to fix it 
  2. We live in a world that is digitally connected, and positioned to activate change
  3. We have a passionate global legal industry that is increasingly driven by exponential change makers

If we considered these statements, and imagined a framework in which they were all brought together, we have the World Legal Summit: an organization spurred by initiatives to drive informed development of technology toward a globally sustainable future. The World Legal Summit is structured in two parts: 

Informing Action

Part One – Informing Aug 1st 2019: Designed to facilitate the understanding and formulation of global insights about legislative and regulatory frameworks dealing with emerging technologies and global systems.

Part Two – Action Sept 6-8 2019: A world wide development sprint, designed to bring the insights and understandings from part one together with individuals and organizations world wide. It will foster an environment in which individuals and organizations that are working on the development of these technologies can come to discover ways to further develop their technologies in a way that is legally and globally sustainable.

Part One just completed. So, how did it go? 

Part One of the World Legal Summit was the focal point. It was the driving piece that created the globally collaborative dialogue needed to bring stakeholders together across disparate jurisdictions. It was a grand success! It will be followed by a publication aimed for launch late October/early November that will highlight key insights from each participating jurisdiction. 

It focused on discussion of three main categories (see below), with a segment of the day dedicated to a custom program of each host’s choosing: 

  • Identity and Personal Governance
  • Autonomous Machines
  • Cyber Security and Personal Data

Now we’re ramping up to Part Two and wanted to share a few highlights from Part One: 

  • 30+ cities, across 20+ countries participated 
  • Nearly 100 universities, innovation hubs, law firms, societies, governments, and companies were involved
  • Hundreds of leading professionals across technology, legal, and government participated and contributed expert insights
  • Of the three categories Cyber Security and Personal Data were by far the most approachable categories to address in terms of current legislative frameworks that deal with these topics and availability of experts equipped to discuss these topics
  • Of the three categories Identity and Personal Governance was the most difficult for host locations to address, as there are very few jurisdictions with active regulations in this domain, and very few experts equipped to discuss it 
  • Locations came up with incredibly unique programming for their custom segments; including, a hired robot in Dublin, Ireland to share some words of robot wisdom, a workshop around the upcoming cyber security legislation in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and how startups can better prepare for it, and a debate in Toronto, Canada on whether or not robots should have rights in a legal context (complete list and outcomes of custom programming from #WLS2019 will be published in the final publication) 

For more fun and insightful highlights from Part One of #WLS2019, visit our social channels and explore:

Twitter 

LinkedIn

You can also search “World Legal Summit” or “#WLS2019” on other social media channels to discover even more activity (e.g. Facebook, or Instagram). 

Now, Check out Part Two >>> Part Two #WLS2019

A Few Pictures from Part One

Stay Tuned for a Complete Photo Album to be Launched Soon

Jos, Nigeria:

Belo Horizonte, Brazil:

Singapore, Singapore:

Moscow, Russia:

Nairobi, Kenya

Adelaide, Australia