Free Virtual Conference: "Practicing Law in a Virtual World"

The Second Life (SL) Bar Association is organizing the above virtual conference next week on 11/8/09. The SL Bar Association is an informal professional organization that helps members navigate the Second Life legal landscape. Meetings, lectures, and social events are held regularly. Attorneys, legal scholars, and other legal professionals are encouraged to join.

(There is an entire movement about this issue- you can start by join and/or read more at the SL Bar Association Ning Network at  http://slbarassn.ning.com/)


Conference Agenda: "Practicing Law in a Virtual World"
Nov. 8, 2009On Saturday, Nov. 14, SLBA and the ABA-Young Lawyers Section are sponsoring "Practicing Law in a Virtual World" at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law, University of Florida Campus in the virtual world of Second Life. Attorneys and others are invited to attend. There will be two sessions and an informal mixer.

Session 1: Practice Issues Unique to the Virtual World Setting
 Practicing law in an environment where either your client or the person they are dealing with are not in the same jurisdiction raises unique issues. The virtual environment also provides an opportunity for interaction of remotely located legal team members and clients. In addition, Second Life and other virtual worlds have their own local cultures and civil rights issues. This session discusses these and other practice issues unique to representing companies and individuals in a virtual world setting.

Session 2: Substantive Issues in a Virtual World
Copyright violation is a common complaint in a virtual world setting, but there are many interesting topics that are unique to practicing in a virtual world. How can I have an enforceable contract in a world with no “law”? If another person’s avatar attacks my avatar in a non-warring world, is it a crime? Find out what issues virtual worlds attorneys and their clients face in this session on substantive issues in a virtual world.

Mixer: Panelists and conference attendees will have a chance to talk with each other informally.

Please RSVP with your Avatar name to receive your pass and with any questions to: slbaconference@gmail.com or in-world IM: Michele Jigsaw.

More info - http://slbarassn.ning.com/events/practicing-law-in-a-virtual

Best ICT4D Conferences?

ICTWorks, an online resource and network for ICT4D professionals, has requested for folks to post their recommended ICT4D conferences here. If you have a suggestion, please let them know! Either way, it will be interesting to follow the responses.  

Conference Announcement- China and India: The End of Development Models?- 12-13 April 2010, Wellington, NZ

A conference examining the correlation of 'development' and economic growth, "to revisit some of the long-troubling issues in post-War development research and debate: Is the developmental state essential for economic growth? Is export concentration inevitable? Are corporate groupings necessary? Does law matter? How do cultural and social relations contribute to economic and social development?"

The Wellington Conference on Contemporary China 2010
Dates: 12 - 13 April 2010
Call for Proposals Deadline: 30 January 2010
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Website: The Wellington Conference on Contemporary China 2010

Over the last thirty years, the impressive growth performance of China and India has caused a new wave of global anxiety about the rise of power and wealth outside the developed world. More pointedly, scholarly interests and debates have focused on how the rising China and India would change the international political and economic structure, and whether India or China would outperform the other in a long run. 

What is missing amidst the anxieties and fanfare about the two new “giants” is a genuine scholarly interest in an understanding of how the impressive growth and social transformation has been achieved in these two unique countries. With “Japan as No 1” in the 1950s and 1960s, the “four little dragons” in the 1960s and 1970s, the extension of the “East Asian miracle” to the rest of the Pacific Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, and now China and India, scholars must have enough empirical evidence to revisit some of the long-troubling issues in post-War development research and debate: Is the developmental state essential for economic growth? Is export concentration inevitable? Are corporate groupings necessary? Does law matter? How do cultural and social relations contribute to economic and social development?

Moreover, China and India are two major world civilizations that have taken very different paths in modern development. Modern state building started in each of these countries under a set of very different conditions. China and India have been problematic cases in modern development. With the two countries reaching a new historical phase of their modern development, it would be useful to revisit the scholarly debate on modern development again and hopefully to lift it to a new level: how colonial experiences, nationalism, communism and socialism affect a nation’s modern development? How traditional social structure, values and relations transform or persist in modern development and how these shape the emergent modern state? Are there different types of modernity or different models of modern developments?

The conference is designed to bring leading scholars in the field to address these issues. We are very pleased to have Professor Wing Thye Woo of UC Davis; Professor Pranab Bardhan, UC Berkeley; Professor Zhenglai Deng of Fudan University; Professor Prasenjit Duara of National University of Singapore; Professor B. Sudhakara Reddy of Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research; Professor Fu Jun of Peking University; Professor Sun Shihai of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Dr John Alexander Michael of University of Madras, Professor Sheng Kaiyan of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences; Professor Guo Sujian of Fudan University; Professor Dilip K. Das, of Conestoga College; Professor Heng Quan of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences