Jan 16, 20194 min read

Singapore Academy of Law and Singtel organise the “Olympics” of legal hackathons

Updated: Jan 17, 2019

Competition gives local legal technologists a chance to gain global exposure.

Singapore, 16 January 2019 – The Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL”)’s Future Law Innovation Programme (“FLIP”) and Singtel are co-organising the Singapore leg of the Global Legal Hackathon 2019. The competition challenges participants to conceptualise and develop innovative technological solutions to tackle real world issues faced by the legal community.

Dubbed the “Olympics” of legal hackathons, the Global Legal Hackathon 2019 is open to legal, technology and design professionals. It gives local legal technologists a chance to gain international exposure and to compete against the best from around the world.

The Singapore leg of the competition will take place from 22 to 24 February 2019 at Singtel’s newly refurbished community and collaboration space, Singtel@8George. Teams are expected to draw from the multidisciplinary experience of their members and develop solutions for problem statements posed by SAL and Singtel. Submissions will be judged on design, feasibility as well as revenue models by members of the law community and Singtel Innov8, Singtel’s corporate venture fund. The winning team from Singapore will win prizes and could advance to the global finals, to be held in May 2019. If successful, the team would join the ranks of Regall LT, a local team that made it to the global finals in New York last year.

Ms Shantini Sanmuganathan, Singtel Group’s General Counsel said, “Digital has become a new way of working in Singtel, whether we are improving our internal processes or creating new solutions for customers. Events such as the Global Legal Hackathon provide an opportunity for us to foster innovation and collaborate with the brightest minds in different fields. We look forward to working together with them to come up with creative solutions to problems that would benefit both Singtel and the larger legal community as a whole.”

“We are happy to have Singtel on board for this year’s edition of the legal hackathon,” said Mr Paul Neo, creator of FLIP and Chief Operating Officer of SAL. “It is a positive sign that the business world is looking at how innovation and technology can enhance efficiency in all areas, including in the legal departments of companies. We hope to be able to continue supporting the transformation of the legal ecosystem through FLIP’s programmes and look forward to working alongside organisations both within and beyond the legal sector to do so.”

As in last year’s inaugural edition, the Singapore leg of the Global Legal Hackathon 2019 is expected to attract diverse participants from various professional backgrounds, as well as age groups. For instance, teams last year comprised senior and young lawyers, in-house counsel, legal technologists, students and non-law professionals from the fintech and tech sectors. This multidisciplinary factor ensured that they created commercially viable and creative products, while adopting solutions and strategies from sectors outside their own. This year’s hackathon will once again require all teams to accept additional members on the first evening, encouraging participants without teams to join.

For more information on the Singapore leg of the Global Legal Hackathon 2019 and to register, please visit http://www.flip.org.sg/events-1/global-legal-hackathon.

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Media Contacts

Ashutosh Ravikrishnan

Assistant Manager

Corporate Communications

Singapore Academy of Law

Tel: 6332 5371 / 8498 7507

Email: ashutosh_ravikrishnan@sal.org.sg

Jonathan Wong

Manager

Group Strategic Communications and Branding

Singtel

Tel: 6838 5059 / 8126 0605

Email: jon.wong@singtel.com

Foo Kim Leng

Deputy Director

Corporate Communications

Singapore Academy of Law

Tel: 6332 5365

Email: foo_kim_leng@sal.org.sg

About the Future Law Innovation Programme FLIP is a two-year pilot programme by the Singapore Academy of Law to encourage the adoption of technology and drive innovation to create a vibrant ecosystem for legal technology. It is part of the Legal Technology Vision, a five-year road map by SAL for the digital transformation of Singapore’s legal sector. This vision — put together by representatives from the Judiciary, the Ministry of Law, Attorney-General’s Chambers and private sector lawyers — is a call to action for lawyers to become part of the digital disruption that faces the legal industry today. FLIP regularly runs legal tech-related events in the Legal Innovation Lab located at the Collision 8 co-working space across the road from the Supreme Court.

More information on FLIP can be found at www.flip.org.sg.

About the Singapore Academy of Law

SAL is a promotion and development agency for Singapore’s legal industry. Our vision is to make Singapore the legal hub of Asia. SAL works with our stakeholders to set new precedents of excellence in Singapore law through developing thought leadership, world class infrastructure and legal solutions. Our mandates are to build up the intellectual capital of the legal profession by enhancing legal knowledge, raise the international profile of Singapore law, promote Singapore as a centre for dispute resolution, and improve the standards and efficiency of legal practice through continuing professional development and the use of technology. As a body established by statute, SAL also undertakes statutory functions such as stakeholding services and appointment of Senior Counsel, Commissioners for Oaths and Notaries Public.

More information can be found at www.sal.org.sg.

About Singtel

Singtel is Asia's leading communications technology group, providing a portfolio of services from next-generation communication, technology services to infotainment to both consumers and businesses. For consumers, Singtel delivers a complete and integrated suite of services, including mobile, broadband and TV. For businesses, Singtel offers a complementary array of workforce mobility solutions, data hosting, cloud, network infrastructure, analytics and cyber-security capabilities. The Group has presence in Asia, Australia and Africa and reaches over 700 million mobile customers in 21 countries. Its infrastructure and technology services for businesses span 21 countries, with more than 428 direct points of presence in 362 cities.

For more information, visit www.singtel.com.

About Global Legal Hackathon

Kicking off in 2018 in North America, the Global Legal Hackathon is a non-profit organisation that spurs law schools, law firms and in-house departments, legal technology companies, governments, and service providers to innovation in the legal industry. Its initiatives have since gone global. It brings together the best thinkers, doers and practitioners in law in support of a unified vision: rapid development of solutions to improve the legal industry, world-wide.

For more, visit https://globallegalhackathon.com.