The startup WhiteHatters launched by an Institute team awarded “most viable project” in Miami.
The Graduate Institute stood out in the final event of LawWithoutWalls (LWOW) 2015, a part-virtual international programme based on linking law and entrepreneurship through innovating the legal education and practice, managed by Professor Joost Pauwelyn.
The initiative connects students from nearly 30 of the most prestigious Universities worldwide with a large network of academics, lawyers, professionals and entrepreneurs. The network supports the students in the development of projects providing implementable solutions to practical issues faced by legal education and practice. 17 teams of students supervised by their mentors presented their projects on the occasion of the concluding event of LWOW 2015, the ConPosium, hosted by the University of Miami Law School on April 18th-19th.
Three students from the Institute took part to the competition, supervised by experienced groups of mentors including the LWOW Faculty Lead Representative Giorgia Linardi (Master in International Law ’15).
The startup WhiteHatters, presented by a three-students team including Vincent Beyer (Master in International Law ’16), was awarded “most viable project” of LWOW 2015. WhiteHatters tackles the issue of cyber security in international law firms by building human firewalls through targeted phishing attacks, in the aim to prevent the dispersion of confidential information due to human error and the related reputational damage.
“Taking real legal issues out of the classroom and trying to approach them from a practical perspective through the development of a startup was an extremely rewarding experience” –comments Vincent.
Catherine Hogan (Master in International Law ’16) and William Knechtel (Master in Political Science ’15) took part in LWOW 2015 with two socially oriented projects, Social Shift Hub and TransLawIt, addressing respectively the issues of youth recidivism and of access to courts for people who face language barriers.
Social Shift Hub is a primarily online intermediary which connects governments, private investors and social projects tackling the issue of youth recidivism through the process of social impact bonds. TransLawIt addresses the issue of access to court for deaf people, using video-link technology supplying instant and guaranteed interpreters where and when they are needed throughout the court system.
Back to Geneva, Giorgia said: “the Institute made the most out of the opportunity to connect our studies with the reality of the legal professional market, allowing us students to step in with increased awareness, concrete skills and practical competence. I had the pleasure to be mentoring this team personally and am very happy to have brought some result back, in response to the Institute's investment in the programme”.
Congratulations to you four! We look forward to presenting some of these projects to the Alumni Community at the 2nd International Alumni Reunion, on November 7th.
From left to right: William Knechtel, Vincent Beyer, Catherine Hogan, Giorgia Linardi