Colleen Lyons has been employed by Congress & IBM and most recently Gartner VP, Executive Relations. Her current area of research and humanitarian efforts include the ethical implications of infectious disease in developing nations and the covenantal ties which exist in societal, geographical and economic spheres and the interplay among capital markets, global policy institutions, emerging nations and the ethical duties of those stakeholders. She has presented on these topics in Africa and the United States. Ms. Lyons holds a Master of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (May, 2006) and studied Global Ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary and holds a BA in Political Science and Urban Planning from Rutgers College. She served on the international steering committee of the International Student Conference on AIDS (Tanzania). Ms. Lyons participated in the World Summit on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Muscat, Oman, April 2006). Ms. Lyons is employed with LRN, governance, an ethics and compliance firm.

Presentation: Bioethics and Business: The UN MDG Challenge

This paper proposes a business roundtable, based on the legal pro bono model, to address the developing nation's health issues. Infectious disease in the South is the most compelling bioethical issue facing the global village. However, global policy (vis World Bank and IMF) is based on dubious data and shaky premise. Poverty is an underlying cause of the infectious disease epidemics in developing nations. Poverty requires accurate codification. A business pro-bono institute would help generate politically agnostic solutions integrated with measurements and accountability. Global businesses with emerging markets in countries with projected upward trajectories of disease, malnutrition and orphans, are ethically required to help achieve the United Nations MDG's, which are noble but the targets are unrealistic. The participation of business would help bring a discipline and creativity to establishing realistic calculations. This is not charity. It's a method of creating healthy, sustainable economic systems in the South.