The Forum with Michele Benedetto Neitz

The Forum at Grace Cathedral

The internet of today is a far cry from its early promise of a decentralized, democratic network of innovation, connection, and freedom. In the past decade, it has fallen under the control of a small group of powerful companies. But the dream of an open network for fostering creativity and entrepreneurship doesn’t have to die. And it just might be saved by blockchain networks, which create a radical new way to design fair and freely accessible internet services that put users in charge. There is more to this technology's story than crypto scams!

Michele Benedetto Neitz is a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law. She is the Founder and Academic Director of the Blockchain Law for Social Good Center, the first of its kind in the United States. The Center's four pillars — education, community, policy, and research — are creating a new model of blockchain as a tool for social good.

Join Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Professor Neitz on the ethical, regulatory, and social impact issues in blockchain technology, the power of blockchains to reshape the future of the internet, and how that affects us all.

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About the Guest 

Michele Benedetto Neitz joined the University of San Francisco School of Law in January 2022. She is the Founder and Academic Director of the Blockchain Law for Social Good Center, the first of its kind in the United States. She teaches Blockchain Technology and the Law, Business Associations, Legal Ethics, and other classes. Prior to joining USF Law, Professor Neitz was voted “Most Outstanding Professor” by the graduating class of Golden Gate University School of Law six times, most recently in 2022. Professor Neitz was appointed to advise the California legislature as a member of the California Blockchain Working Group in 2019. She publishes and lectures on the ethical, regulatory, and social impact issues in blockchain technology. Professor Neitz gave a keynote address on the topic of emerging technology law at the SHINE Summit at Harvard University in October 2023. Professor Neitz graduated as a Root-Tilden-Scholar from New York University School of Law.  Before joining academia, she clerked in the Southern District of California for Judge Napoleon Jones.  She also worked as an Equal Justice Works fellow at the Legal Aid Society of San Diego and was an associate at Morrison & Foerster.

About the Moderator

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.   

About The Forum

The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world.  More about Grace Forum Online:   gracecathedral.org/the-forum