Give to the Ian R. Kerr Memorial Fund to support the Kerr Fellows
A fundraising campaign for the Ian R. Kerr Memorial Fund and the Kerr Fellows program is underway with the goal of raising $1 million in support of ten years of new Kerr Fellows.
As part of Giving Tuesday, you can give to support this new program!
In the months since Ian Kerr’s passing, his friends and colleagues have endeavoured to craft a project for the Ian R Kerr Memorial Fund commensurate with his remarkable legacy. This is no easy task: Ian was an extraordinary teacher, a prescient scholar, a dynamic leader, and an incredibly supportive colleague whose absence is felt every day at the faculty and in many scholarly communities. Ian had many academic passions, but it was students that fueled his fire more than any other. Ian had an uncanny ability to bring out the very best in his students, to create innovative learning opportunities, and to take an active interest in their careers long after graduation.
Ian was the lead creator of the LL.M. in Law and Technology and one of its biggest supporters. The LL.M. in Law and Technology has grown into one of the top programs of its kind, attracting students from around the world with alumni that can be found in academia, leading technology companies, law firms, government, and public interest organizations.
The Kerr Fellows program will help bring the very best students from around the world to the University of Ottawa and link a generation of new leaders to Ian and his legacy. Each year, four new Kerr Fellows will be supported with a $25,000 scholarship from the Ian R Kerr Memorial Fund, additional financial support from the University of Ottawa, a travel stipend to attend conferences such as WeRobot or the IAPP Canadian Privacy Symposium, and a guaranteed placement in their field of study within the technology law internship program.
Ian’s vision was to ensure that top students from around the world would have the necessary funding and support to pursue their scholarly dreams of researching legal, ethical and policy questions surrounding new technologies. To continue his efforts towards a more inclusive academy and empowering emerging researchers, the Kerr Fellows program will notably support students from non-traditional backgrounds or perspectives, or from abroad who are not usually supported by traditional funding schemes.
A call for applications to the Kerr Fellows program is expected early in 2020 with the first cohort of fellows commencing their studies in September 2020.