Open Governance Platform

for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

In order to support online entrepreneurial applications, there have to be a number of governance mechanisms and capabilities in place. Complex issues concerning privacy, security, and local jurisdiction are but the tips of the iceberg as new kinds of financial and technical services are designed to leverage—and exploit— the opportunities presented by globalized computing resources.

The Open Governance Platform aims to develop an open source cloud platform whereby different types of governance mechanisms – such as an identity system, reputation system, dispute resolution, voting, etc. – can be combined to develop and test new kinds of governance models for voluntary or “private law networks.” These new governance models can act as drivers of new entrepreneurial models.

By using a cloud computing model as a service platform with open APIs, the goal is to make it easy for researchers, business, governmental actors, and others to independently combine and test different approaches to governance. Law Lab has assembled a world-class team of scientists and software engineers to design and develop the underlying platform and an exploratory set of governance mechanisms.

A prototype of the governance platform was developed for demonstration at the World Economic Forum for Dubai and Davos meetings in 2011. This prototype was developed for Android mobile platforms because of their open architecture and licensing polities. The governance mechanisms include authentication mechanisms, rudimentary reputation and credit assignment mechanisms, auditing mechanism, and example liability policies for members of a trust member networks. Through continued research, Law Lab will focus its efforts on developing a specifications, software, and policy frameworks for an open governance platform that could be applicable to cloud computing and mobile platforms