Houston Voices

Global Legal Hackathon launches at The Cannon in Houston

Students, technologists, lawyers, mentors, and judges of all ages and backgrounds packed The Cannon's space Saturday and Sunday for the Houston chapter's Global Legal Hackathon. Getty Images

Hackathons have been launching across the globe at an ever-increasing rate, providing opportunities for computer programmers and others involved in software development to collaborate on projects that solve problems.

Hackathons usually consist of a multi-day workshop in which individuals break into teams and compete against each other to win the approval of a panel of judges, often resulting in a prize. These events will have a specific theme or focus centered on problem solving in today's world using new technologies. Themes can vary from utilizing a new technology like blockchain, supporting a movement like mental illness awareness, or even just working to develop a brand-new app that solves a problem previously not considered.

Global Legal Hackathon is a nonprofit entity that organizes legal groups across the globe. Since launching, GLH has hosted over 6,000 participants in 24 different countries. The primary goal for these events is to bring together people under a unified vision to develop solutions that improve the legal industry. Last weekend, GLH hosted over 5000 hackathons across the world, with a winner from each location moving onto the next round.

The Houston branch manager for the Global Legal Hackathon is Internetbar.org Institute. IBO organizes, gathers mentors, manages, and provides support for all legal hackathons in Houston. Christy Leos, the director of operations of IBO, described their mission as an "aim to support those who need critical help more efficiently, and change processes that no longer serve the people."

The president of IBO, Jeff Aresty, expanded on this mission.

"Like previous generations, we too must rely upon failed justice institutions and laws to protect those who are excluded from society, protect the climate, and eradicate poverty. In the meantime, the online society which now amounts to over half the world, is dominated by everyone else in civil society who are engaging in all kinds of online activity that may connect us with each other – but do very little to effectively bring fairness and freedom to us all."

The Cannon was proud to host last weekend's Houston chapter of the GLH. Students, technologists, lawyers, mentors, and judges of all ages and backgrounds packed the space Saturday and Sunday. By the end of the hackathon, the winning team had developed a tool to assist lawyers in visualizing eDiscovery data, combined with the information used to manage the movement of that data through the EDRM process.

As hackathons continue to grow in both size and frequency, their modern creative solutions to today's problems also grow. Moving forward, IBO hopes to continue to go where the problems are. They are already planning to host an access to justice hackathon by the end of the year where Aresty hopes to continue the progress made over the weekend, sharing with the group that "their actions can help us reinvent how we make laws and devise a social contract that brings access to justice for all." More events like last weekend's are certainly a step in the right direction of this ambitious but much needed goal.

If you're interested in Internetbar and participating in events like this in the future, please visit http://internetbar.org/membership.
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This is content from our partner, which originally ran on The Cannon.

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Building Houston

 
 

Baylor College of Medicine's Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. Rendering courtesy of BCM

Baylor College of Medicine has collected $100 million toward its $150 million fundraising goal for the college’s planned Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.

The $100 million in gifts include:

  • A total of $30 million from The Cullen Foundation, The Cullen Trust for Health Care, and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education.
  • $12 million from the DeBakey Medical Foundation
  • $10 million from the Huffington Foundation
  • More than $45 million from members of Baylor’s Board of Trustees and other community donors, including the M.D. Anderson Foundation, the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation, and The Elkins Foundation.

“The Cullen Trust for Health Care is very honored to support this building along with The Cullen Foundation and The Cullen Trust for Higher Education,” Cullen Geiselman Muse, chair of The Cullen Trust for Health Care, says in a news release. “We cannot wait to see what new beginnings will come from inside the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.”

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

The Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower is set to open in 2026. The 503,000-square-foot tower is the first phase of Baylor’s planned Health Sciences Park, an 800,000-square-foot project that will feature medical education and research adjacent to patient care at Baylor Medicine and Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center on the McNair Campus.

The Baylor campus is next to Texas Medical Center’s Helix Park, a 37-acre project that will support healthcare, life sciences, and business ventures. Baylor is the anchor tenant in the first building being constructed at Helix Park.

“To really change the future of health, we need a space that facilitates the future,” says Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO, and executive dean of Baylor. “We need to have a great building to recruit great talent. Having a place where our clinical programs are located, where our data scientists are, next to a biotech development center, and having our medical students all integrated into that environment will allow them to be ready in the future for where healthcare is going.”

In the 1940s, Lillie and Roy Cullen and the M.D. Anderson Foundation were instrumental in establishing the Texas Medical Center, which is now the world’s largest medical complex.

“Baylor is the place it is today because of philanthropy,” Klotman says. “The Cullen family, the M.D. Anderson Foundation, and the Albert and Margaret Alkek Foundation have been some of Baylor’s most devoted champions, which has enabled Baylor to mold generations of exceptional health sciences professionals. It is fitting that history is repeating itself with support for this state-of-the-art education building.”

The Cullen Foundation donated $30 million to the project. Rendering courtesy of BCM

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