JAKE HIRSCH-ALLEN

Formerly a startup and intellectual property lawyer, Jake prefers networking to drafting. Jake spends his days connecting people and ideas through technology as a partner at Functional Imperative, a Toronto-based digital innovation and software development company.

Jake also recently founded Lighthouse Labs, an immersive software development boot camp based in Vancouver. In addition, Jake is a senior manager at Incentives for Global Health, the non-profit proposing the Health Impact Fund, a new means of incentivizing innovative medical technology. Jake also works part-time as Director of Business Development for the Multiplicity Accelerator and Cobalt Counsel, and advises a number of high-tech startups.

Jake has significant experience in the private and public sectors in Canada and abroad including clerking for the Supreme Court of Israel. Jake articled at Gilbert’s LLP, an intellectual property litigation boutique in Toronto where he conducted government relations and litigation for clients in the pharma, high-tech, and music industries. In addition to acting as the Executive Director of McGill’s International Criminal Law Clinic, Jake worked for Foreign Affairs Canada, McGill’s Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and UofT’s Munk Center for International Studies.

Jake has interned at Human Rights Watch and on Radovan Karadzic and Ieng Thirith’s defense teams at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). He has conducted research for Professors Margaret MacMillan, Payam Akhavan, Frederic Megret, Paul Litt, Sylvia Ostry and Goran Sluiter, among others.