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September 28, 2012
Missoula, Montana
Legal Atlas Nominated for Innovating Justice Award
The Innovating Justice Forum located in The Hague, Netherlands, has nominated Legal Atlas for its “innovative ideas” award, saying the Missoula-based initiative creates one of the world’s most groundbreaking efforts in developing technology to promote and advance legal justice.
Legal Atlas is an advanced knowledge platform that maps the physical/social footprint of law for use as a management tool in planning the world’s environmental, natural, and agricultural resources.
Legal Atlas’s Jim Wingard commented “This is an exciting time for innovation at The Legal Atlas and on the campus of UM. Our partnership with UM has allowed this a concept to develop into a resource which has been embraced by the international community as a commercial application tool that also creates a social good through responsible planning of environmental law.”
Marco Nicoli of the World Bank says that, “Legal Atlas is the kind of the partner we want to see playing a leading role in advancing the relationship between the rule of law and development internationally.”
Legal Atlas is gaining attention and support as a promising Missoula-based technology initiative, with strong potential for significant growth.
Marcy Allen, Executive Director of the Bitterroot Economic Development District, said “Legal Atlas is at the cutting edge of Missoula’s emerging tech industry business sector. It’s exciting to see our local businesses excel and gain such prestigious international attention.”
Legal Atlas’s global approach is especially welcome at The University of Montana where President Royce Engstrom’s newly-established Global Leadership Initiative is looking to foster global thinking and the next generation of global leaders. In the information age, experience for students in an enterprise directly involved in creating and marketing this type of system is invaluable.
According to President Engstrom, “The Legal Atlas project is a wonderful example of the creativity we are looking for at The University of Montana. In this ‘Global Century,’ our faculty, staff, and students are taking steps to connect our education and research to the opportunities and challenges that affect us both right here in Missoula and around the world. Legal Atlas is at the forefront of that thinking and I am proud of the people involved in it.”
Legal Atlas is directly associated with the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Center at The University of Montana and has received local private and state support from GCS Research, the Bitterroot Economic Development District, and the Montana Technology Innovation Partnership.
You can see the Legal Atlas posting at the Innovating Justice website. Public commenting and voting for projects is open to the public September 15 through October 8. (For step-by-step instructions on voting, go to the Legal Atlas Facebook page.)