Hudson Hollister
Grant, you must be exhausted because you have been presenting during Italian time to the LEX Summer School hosted in Ravenna. Is that right?
Grant Vergottini
Well, yes. Italian time and then this morning in Brazil for Bussola Tech’s LegisTech for Democracy event.
Hudson Hollister
Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us about the history of the summer school?
Grant Vergottini
The LEX Summer School was started about 12 or 13 years ago to promote Akoma Ntoso. It originally started with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and the University of Bologna, and was hosted in Florence.
In 2010, it was moved to Ravenna to echo some of the history of the Roman code, which was drafted in Ravenna, and it’s been held there ever since. The small town of today is very proud of its large history.
Hudson Hollister
Is there anything else in the world like this annual program in XML-based legislative drafting?
Grant Vergottini
Not at this level of technical detail and depth in XML as it relates to legislation. There’s the XML summer school in Oxford, run by Xcential’s Lauren Wood. But if you really want to get into XML and legislation, you go to the summer school in Ravenna, which has been virtual in the last two years.
Hudson Hollister
Tell us about the participants. Early on when the school was first founded, I’m sure it was rare for national or provincial legislatures to even be in a position to find out that such an opportunity existed. Has it become better known over the decade that it’s been operating?
Grant Vergottini
As word of Akoma Ntoso has spread it has become better known. I think way back when I first started participating, people didn’t know what Akoma Ntoso was, didn’t know how to say it — maybe they still don’t know how to say it.
Hudson Hollister
Ha! I’m still afraid that I may not…
Grant Vergottini
You’re doing all right. But back then it was much less known outside of European academic circles. Today, it’s much better known. I think we’ve done our part in spreading the word in North America. It’s well known in South America, it’s well known throughout Africa, and of course in Europe, so it’s got a much bigger following. It still tends to be very European-centric because of the nature of where it’s held. We have held a couple summer schools in America in order to give people in the U.S. and Canada an opportunity to participate without looking too much like a boondoggle trip to Italy. But the heart and soul of Akoma Ntoso remains in Ravenna.
Hudson Hollister
Tell us a bit about the trajectory of the adoption of Akoma Ntoso since the founding of the summer school.
Grant Vergottini
It’s starting to pick up steam now that it’s truly a standard and now that there are some examples of how to use it. It’s been looked at quite far and wide. It’s been used extensively throughout Europe. The European Parliament and European Commission have promoted it heavily. It’s being picked up in the United Kingdom. We’re starting to use it more and more in the U.S. and in Canada. It’s gotten a bit of a following in South America. We’re taking it to Mauritius, and hopefully, we’ll see more of a return to its roots in Africa.
Hudson Hollister
Tell us about the typical experience of those who participate in the summer program. What’s it like to be a student?
Grant Vergottini
It’s very much an immersion in the history of legislation, going way back to Roman times. When you’re there, you feel the presence of the people who came before us. And they keep hammering that home, that the history of legislation in Ravenna goes back 1,500 years. You really are immersed in it, you’re in buildings that were built hundreds of years ago and you get tours of the Ravenna that once was.
You get a reminder of what history you’re building on. They like to make the point that 1,500 years ago, Roman law went from being an oral tradition to a written tradition. The scholars that wrote down the law did it in Ravenna. Now we are transitioning from the paper tradition to the digital tradition and we’re doing it in the same town.
So it really connects it way back to Roman times. And you can really feel that connection. You get to visit and then you get to visit Dante’s tomb, which actually, the 700th anniversary of his death happened recently. There is supposed to be a big celebration that we’ve been looking forward to for many years, but we get to miss it this year. But every year they have a celebration, around the same weekend that we’re there, to celebrate Dante. So you get to see that the people of Florence come to visit and to bring fresh oil for the eternal flame. And they come in medieval costumes. So you get a whole sense that you’re in a different place in time. All the while learning all about XML.
Hudson Hollister
Wow. I can’t think of any other opportunity to truly connect XML-based legislation, Data First legislation, which feels so modern, with rich tradition.
Grant Vergottini
Yeah. The University of Bologna will remind you that they were the first university and they were founded to teach law, almost 1,000 years ago, based on that civil code written in Ravenna. So for them it’s a continuation of the tradition.
Hudson Hollister
What are some of the core instruction courses or tracks through which the students must pass during their time in the school?
Grant Vergottini
The school has three parts, the first part is really an introduction to XML. And it’s for people who are really learning about XML from a fresh start. About halfway through, you go to the more advanced phase of the course, where you dive more into Akoma Ntoso and how it’s applied. And generally more people show up at that part of the class. At the end of the class, and we didn’t do it this year, but usually we have a developer’s workshop.
The developers workshop is an opportunity for all the practitioners of legislative XML to come together and share what they do and share information. And although we can be competitors, we make a point to share what we do, share our experiences, and learn from each other.
Hudson Hollister
How many faculty members are there and how many of them are indeed competitive with one another?
Grant Vergottini
The classes vary. This year it was very small, only about a dozen people. It gets up to about 30 people in total in good years when there isn’t a pandemic to mute it. Xcential is usually the most overt of the vendors. It has much more of a European feel, with parliaments, legislators, and academic people sharing information. We tend to look like the Americans with our more business-oriented view.
Hudson Hollister
What’s the right balance? In my view, Data First legislation is only going to scale if the private sector, including vendors, embraces it. Because only the private sector can scale the way we need to scale the necessary technologies. On the other hand, the law ought never be under private sector ownership. A balance is necessary. Is that discussed at the school? And do you agree?
Grant Vergottini
Yes. I think it makes sense that it was developed where they have a rich tradition. They have the academic view, and it was developed in close cooperation with legislatures. But to become a truly universal solution it needs to pull in vendors. It needs to become a business. Until it becomes a business, it’s going to remain as an academic curiosity.
That’s where we come in, that’s the change that we can bring. We can spread it far and wide. When they work with individual legislatures, they’ve got to reach and convince each one. We can do it on a much broader scale because we’re a company. We’re built to scale. We don’t just focus on one particular jurisdiction’s needs.
Early on, they had tried very hard to get American involvement and hadn’t been very successful. They were thrilled when I showed up. Just because my viewpoints can be very different. I have a business viewpoint and I keep pointing that out. I look at it differently — from the standpoint of how you make money at this — rather than discussing open source and volunteer efforts.
Hudson Hollister
How do you think the school may develop, change, and expand as the concept of Data First legislating, develops, changes, and expands?
Grant Vergottini
I think that it needs to become less of an educational vehicle and more of a promotional vehicle. It’s been evangelizing the technology and teaching a lot of the basics that I think people should have at this point. And it’s time to move on a little bit beyond the basics and start looking at what we can do with it rather than convincing people that it exists at all. And that’s a transition that we have yet to make. I think if it weren’t for the pandemic, we would probably be further down that path. I think we’ve lost a little bit with the timing, unfortunately.
Hudson Hollister
What do you think is the most optimistic view to recover that momentum?
Grant Vergottini
I’m hopeful that as we grow and we’re able to start bringing other companies into our fold, partners we’re working with, that we can create a much broader view. I’m still, after 10 years, the American vendor. You don’t see a European vendor in the same sense. I would hope that as we build partnerships with Xcential those people can be brought into the fold and can become part of what we do.
I’ve seen it in other fields, the CAD field where I came from. The big conference every year I’d started way back in the late 70s early 80s had been an academic conference and it evolved into a trade show because a market had been created. And as we create a market it’s more about showing what can be done and less about telling people that it can be done at all.
Hudson Hollister
Grant Vergottini, founder and CEO of Xcential, thanks so much for spending some time with us.
Grant Vergottini
You’re welcome.
