Justice innovation is everywhere: from Kampala to Kiev to The Hague. Find out more about the pioneering entrepreneurs who are trying to bridge the gap in justice in our next round of Innovating Justice Conferences!
On 27 September, our fourth Regional Final of the Innovating Justice Challenge took place. This time, we were in Kyiv, Ukraine, where six Ukrainian justice entrepreneurs presented their innovation to the jury and competed for a spot on the Justice Accelerator program. Oleksii Dorogan of the Better Regulation Office held a keynote speech followed by the pitches and panel discussions. And now the winner….Axdraft! Axdraft is a free online platform of high quality automated legal documents for small and medium sized enterprises. Second place and audience choice award went to Vkursi. Vkursi offers a business integrity check in 1 click. It is a legal advisory and algorithm for dealing with company threats based on open data and AI.
One day later, we continued in Kampala where we had a full programme of ten pitches and several speakers. The keynote speech was given by Lade Justice Kazaarwe, who stated that innovation was needed to get justice. We also had a panel discussion by the Family Justice Core Group on best practices in resolving family justice issues such as divorce. They emphasized that it is important to consider the needs of the child in a divorce and the need to involve both men and women in solving family issues. First place went to Yunga, a local rescue digital network for neighbours, that allows them to communicate with each other in real time in case of attack. Tunga won second place. Tunga Innovations Ltd is an app that informs users about their employment rights. E.g leave days both annual and maternity, overtime rates and notice before resigning or being terminated. Audience choice went to Prison Officer Legal Empowerment (POLE) Model; POLE empowers prison communities and the poor with the law. It aims to be incorporated into the training curriculum of prisons.
Our second last Regional Final was held in The Hague on 2 October 2018, as part of Impact Startup Fest. Sam Muller, CEO of HiiL, opened the Conference by reminding everyone of the need for justice innovation and the global movement that has started to accelerate Sustainable Development Goal 16.3: access to justice for all. Six innovators competed for the first place but eventually Juridische Hulp Online, a digital platform for starting legal procedures and creating legal documents. Together with its partners, JHO helps private individuals, entrepreneurs, law firms and business service providers to make legal processes /procedures simple and transparent. Audience choice award went to New Dutch Connections-Know Your Rights, a mentorship programme which links refugees to law firms and law students. During the event, Richard Faas from ARAG and Max Heck from Appjection, one of the finalists in 2016 Regional Finals, spoke about how to scale innovations. They emphasized the importance of collaboration between the corporate sector and promising new business startups.
Congratulations to all winners of the three Regional Finals and all the participating innovators! Follow us on the final leg of our Innovating Justice Challenge in Dhaka, on October 6th.
