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African market womanRemember the vision of "something better" you carried with you through your undergraduate years and into life? I certainly do, but perhaps like you, decades in practice have tempered my idealism to the extent I wonder sometimes if my youthful dreams ever will ever be fulfilled. Well IBO has a plan to make the dreams come true. Following is a straightforward case for one of the most effective ways to eradicate poverty through sustainable development.

Recently, I listened to my friend, the distinguished economist Daewon Choi, as he spoke before the United Nations' Fifth International Forum on Online Dispute Resolution. Frankly, I found his opening address inspiring, both for the vigor of his words and the boundless enthusiasm he brings to creating transformational solutions to long-term, virtually intractable problems facing economically less advantaged populations throughout the world.

"I envision a novel and deeper role emerging for ODR (Online Dispute Resolution)," he said, "as an agent of change to stimulate and accelerate structural and judiciary reforms in developing countries. ODR is reducing the friction cost associated with electronic commerce and encouraging its growth." Wise words well worth making real. IBO is on the front lines of building an Online Justice System to do just that.

Now, the challenge all of us face who seek to overcome entrenched poverty is to give Daewon's vision a tangible shape with a plan for making e-commerce accessible to all, from the most humble "market woman" in sub-Saharan Africa to urban entrepreneurs and subsistence farmers across the globe.

You may already know of the UN's Millennium Development Goals to stimulate stagnant local economies and eradicate poverty. IBO's Microcommerce Justice Campaign links the pioneering efforts of the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and the flourishing microcredit industry to create a sustainable economic model. In the spirit of these efforts and the pioneering initiatives of Results.org's Microcredit Summit Campaign, IBO is working with the National Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution (www.odr.info) to shape an online justice system, with the means to promote the development of secure online marketplaces, where less advantaged peoples around the globe can become part of the world economy. Just imagine, we can use the internet to create a world without poverty!

Internetbar.org, is uniquely positioned to create powerful, operationally robust programs and utilities to accelerate the implementation of the secure online marketplaces. But we urgently need your counsel and financial support.

This past September we convened a working session on ODR within our Microcommerce Justice Campaign to clarify and map a safe, trustworthy and reliable online system accessible to all. IBO plans are:

• To design and build-out e-commerce systems, including a user interface, secure connectivity and user training program
• Combine a multi-national communications campaign designed to promote engagement
• Initially target disadvantaged populations in Africa, focusing on women and youth in Sub-Saharan with The Peacetones Initiative, a program to sell music and ringtones online

Campaign goals were part Cyberweek (a week long e-symposium on ODR) in mid-October, which Internetbar.org convened with the National Center for Law and Technology at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). Hundreds of participants heard the message that we will carry to the upcoming Online Dispute Resolution Forum to be held in Hong Kong in December of this year.

Please be so kind as to give us your financial support in this critical planning and development initiative and the overall mission of Internetbar.org.

Currently, Internetbar.org is in discussion with a major Web portal provider, who views ODR as vital to the extension of the Internet into the world of the poor and disadvantaged. Once in place, an effective Online Dispute Resolution system holds vast promise, perhaps even to the extent the vision I know we both share - of a world where economic opportunity and advancement embrace an ever-widening circle of humankind - fulfills the promise of our youthful dreams.

On behalf of all my colleagues at Internetbar.org - please log on to learn more about our organization and its supporters. At the same time, allow me to thank you for your time and attention and let me urge you once again fund our goals and transformational initiative.

Your tax-deductible donation to InternetBar.org Institute, LLC can be made by check (mail to 365 Boston Post Road Suite 135 Sudbury, MA 01776).

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Aresty, President
InternetBar.org