Program to culminate in Pacific Rim Summit and Workshop, July 28-30, 2009

XBRL US announced today an internship program for emerging XBRL practitioners as part of a summit and workshop in San Francisco on July 28-30, 2009. The event will assemble a rapidly growing community of professionals from around the Pacific Rim region who are implementing the XBRL business reporting standard in both the public and private sectors.

Interns from several countries will work alongside members of the XBRL US consortium's development team in New York City, using practices and technologies employed in "crowd-sourced" projects. These same practices brought over 200 business and technology experts together to build the US GAAP data standard now being used by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for publicly traded companies in a move to increase transparency and decrease costs.

"This is going to be a tremendously worthwhile experience -- not only for the interns, but for XBRL US as well," said Campbell Pryde, the consortium's chief standards officer responsible for XBRL US research and development. "There is no substitute for working together on a project -- not only at the same workbench, but in the same room. We have a lot to learn from each other."

The concept of internships grew out of conversations with government, technology, and business leaders in Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo late last year during visits by Mark Bolgiano, President and CEO of XBRL US, the nonprofit consortium for XML business reporting standards in the United States.

"Mark-san's vision for regional cooperation resonated with us when he came to Tokyo and met with XBRL Japan. Interns and senior team members working together, and the concept of 'learning by doing' are very successful approaches to professional development and knowledge sharing in Japan. It would be a worthwhile experiment for us to try in July," said Yuzo Takagi, Chairman of XBRL Japan.

The United States, Japan, China and Australia have all seen pilot projects and implementations of the XBRL standard in accounting and financial reporting, asset-backed securities, corporate actions and proxy statements in the private sector, and budget, taxation, and statistics in government.

San Francisco was selected by XBRL US as the location of the Summit and Workshop events to attract technology leaders and entrepreneurs who view XBRL as stimulating a new wave of innovation and an early manifestation of the Semantic Web. Nearby Silicon Valley is becoming more XBRL-aware, with a story on "Road Map for Financial Recovery: Radical Transparency Now!" featuring XBRL in last month's issue of Wired, to a series of XBRL-related announcements by SAP and Oracle, both based in the region.

"I'm looking forward to welcoming the best and brightest here in July -- not only as an XBRL US member, but as a Bay Area technologist. The Pacific Rim is not only the home of the largest economies in the world, but has long been a hotbed of technology innovation. Using the Internet for higher quality, lower-cost business information is an exciting prospect - and it's becoming a reality," said Wilson So, Director, Hitachi Consulting Corporation, and chairman of the event's committee of advisors.

XBRL US anticipates more details on the Pacific Rim Summit and Workshop in the coming weeks. To request information about the internship program or the conference, please contact Michelle Savage, Vice President, XBRL US, at 917 747-1714, michelle.savage@xbrl.us.