BIO Dr. Ernest Thiessen is the Founder and President of Smartsettle (iCanSystems Inc). He has led iCan’s development team since 1993 in to create the world’s first comprehensive eNegotiation system. The system is based on research that Dr. Thiessen directed at Cornell University, where he received a PhD in Civil Engineering with a specialty in Water Resources Systems Planning and Analysis. Ernest also directs the International eNegotiation Tournament and was a lecturer in 2010 for UNESCO-IHE’s Negotiation and Mediation for Water Conflict Management course. Ernest served as a volunteer doing irrigation engineering for Mennonite Central Committee in Nepal during the eighties on an integrated rural development project. He has been a guest speaker and presenter at most of the Annual International Forums on Online Dispute Resolution since they began in 2002 and nearly all of the annual Cyberweek events since 1998.