By Heather Petersen, Senior Director, Trust Strategy and Marketing, DocuSign

As technology continues to advance, we’re going to see agreements become increasingly “smart,” eliminating the inefficiencies that are common to traditional contract creation and management. Given this pivotal time in the industry—and the opportunity to collaborate with other leaders and influencers on the foundational elements needed to accelerate acceptance and adoption of this technology—DocuSign is excited to announce our leadership and participation in the Accord Project.

Laying the Groundwork for Smart Agreements

The Accord Project is an open-source software initiative that was established to develop a technology stack for smart agreements. Smart-agreement technologies raise a host of techno-legal questions, and the Accord Project aims to build a neutral, technology-agnostic foundation for smart agreements with contributions from technology companies, legal solutions providers, think tanks, policy and standards organizations, and other interested stakeholders.

Driven by a steering committee of industry leaders, the Accord Project includes working groups focused on technology and transactions most likely to be impacted by the move to smart agreements. Together, they’re laying a common and consistent foundation for the adoption of smart legal contracts.

Just as DocuSign was at the forefront of the shift from paper to digital, we’re excited to be at the helm of this move to smarter agreements. We’re proud of our past work in aligning the industry on efforts to advance digital agreements, and we’re pleased to be working with the leaders and innovators from the Accord Project on this next phase.

Leveraging a Foundation in World-Class Standards

As a member of the Accord Project steering committee, DocuSign will build on our contributions to the xDTM Standard Association, an organization we co-founded with a host of industry leaders in 2014. The Association published the first transaction management standard for an open digital world, which helped pave the way for the continued growth of the electronic signature industry. Those accomplishments complement the Accord Project’s charter and will help further the development and use of smart agreements, which is why going forward, the xDTM Standard Association will merge future activities with the Accord Project.

Find out more about the Accord Project by visiting https://www.accordproject.org/.