ODR Program at Bentley College

The program is online at http://centra.bentley.edu/main/User/GuestAttend.jhtml?s_guid=000000343bb... from 8 am to 3pm (eastern) on June 10.

This program is the followup program to our April 10-12, 2008 inaugural Bentley Symposium. At that program, we outlined opportunities for new legal and online dispute resolution structures, strategies for linking the developing world with the legal environment, and how the use of technology can help to achieve poverty alleviation and the legal empowerment of the poor. The programs are a collaboration between BGCC and InternetBar.org and InternetBar.org Institute.

We have invited Mark Frazier and ShannonEwing of OpenWorld. They will be here in person and they have much to contribute to the microfinance world. IN particular, they have developed Openworld's initiatives for micro scholarships, online work-study, and grassroots learning initiatives in Asia and Eastern Europe. They have developed an Academy toolkit and Virtual Business Incubator projects; and, in a joint venture with InternetBar.org, they are promoting online marketplaces for microfinance projects around the world.

Also coming from Eastern Michigan University (EMU) is Dr. David Victor, Director of International Business Programs for their College of Business. Dr. Victor is actively involved in microfinance programs in Africa, and very active in EMU's global ethics programs. His current focus on ethics is of particular interest in the ethics arena.

He points out that: "…the innovative power of cyberspace derives from its breaking of boundaries and the resultant freed of its users from pre-existing constraints. By definition, though, the elimination of these constraints poses questions that as yet have no answers. For example, in a cyberworld beyond the reach of any national laws or even international agreements, what can (or will) govern abuses in commerce such as fraud? Likewise, in a cyberworld without standards, what can (or will) ensure quality controls for fields that require standards such as education?

An integrated world commons becomes a place not only beyond the traditional reach of national laws but beyond any given set of ethics. If ethics derive from a given set of cultural norms, then the foundation for most questions arising in the Internet commons becomes what is (or will be) the ethical norms of cyberspace."

Jeff Aresty, Adjunct Faculty
Bentley College