Singapore Academy of Law (SAL) and the Personal Data
Protection Commission (PDPC) have announced that applications are now open for
Singapore’s largest legal tech hackathon – TechLaw.Fest Hackathon.
The 48-hour hackathon is open to students and professionals
– ranging from legal professionals, software developers and designers — and
will be held in conjunction with regional law tech forum, TechLaw.Fest 2018.
The competition challenges participants to come up with innovative
solutions to everyday problems faced by lawyers, in-house counsels, users of
legal services and data protection officers (DPOs) in Singapore. To emphasise
the importance of personal data protection, teams will be expected to
incorporate Data Protection by Design in their solutions.
Under the Data
Protection by Design approach, organisations consider the protection of
personal data from the earliest possible design stage, and throughout the
operational lifecycle, of the new system, process, product or services, instead
of bolting on data protection measures at a later stage.
These challenge areas are drawn from 100 legal industry
problem statements collated by SAL’s Future Law Innovation Programme [1] (FLIP)
– a strategic initiative launched
in January this year to prepare the legal industry for technological disruption.
The challenges also include four data protection problem statements.
The list of problem statements can be accessed here.
The top three winning teams will receive prize vouchers of
up to $6,000 and the opportunity to develop their solutions further under SAL’s
FLIP Accelerator Programme.
“Technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence and
smart contracts will impact the business models of legal services.” said Mr
Paul Neo, SAL’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer.
“FLIP aims to prepare our legal community to become
future-ready by helping law firms and legal professionals understand, develop
and integrate relevant technology solutions to help in the future practice of
law. Collaboration to cross-pollinate ideas between the tech and legal sectors
is key to achieve this, and this hackathon is an excellent opportunity for the
legal and tech sectors to co-create new services and operating models for the
delivery of legal services in the future economy.”
“Digital disruption and transformation is inevitable for
every sector, and thus it is critical that new and innovative ideas be
presented to help drive the sector along,” said Assistant Chief Executive
(PDPC) Yeong Zee Kin, IMDA. “The PDPC believes competitions such as
TechLaw.Fest’s hackathon help sectors work through their challenges and
discover new solutions and technologies to keep them globally competitive.”
The hackathon will be held on 4 – 6 April 2018 at Suntec
Convention Centre.
[1] FLIP comprises
three components, the first two of which were part of the launch. They are a
Legal Innovation Lab located at the Collision 8 co-working space across the
road from the Supreme Court. This is dedicated incubator for legal innovation
and is open to tech-enabled law firms & legaltech startups. The second is a
virtual collaboration platform called LawNet Community. It will serve as a
networking & collaboration tool for the legal industry and facilitate
access to technology tools. The third component, South East Asia’s first legal
tech accelerator to groom promising legal tech start-ups, will be launched in
April.
