Aleksandar Kokotović: I challenge you to participate in a conference that might be your ‘red pill‘
The 6th edition of the biggest student pro-liberty conference, organized by the student-driven association European Students For Liberty (ESFL), will take place March 17th to 19th at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Now dubbed “LibertyCon”, it aims to bring together more than 1,000 students and young professionals from all over Europe and the world to discuss the sharing economy, technology and its future
Having in mind that only couple of days have left until the biggest pro-liberty event this year, Kotryna Tamkutė, Board member at ESFL is discussing about the conference together with Programs Director at ESFL Aleksandar Kokotovič.
LibertyCon, formerly known as European Students for Liberty Conference is an international conference and perfect place to meet pro-liberty students and young professionals from all over the world. I believe that every participant, every speaker and organizer sees this event in his or her own way. But if some stranger would ask you about the libertyCon, how could you describe it?
LibertyCon has been *the* place to meet liberty-minded students, professionals, academics and basically giving students the opportunity to meet ‘who is who’ of the liberty movement. It is also a unique space where like-minded activists coming from many different backgrounds gather to discuss, challenge and celebrate their own ideas of love, peace and prosperity. It is aiming to become the place where new, creative and disruptive ways of changing our society are discussed, envisioned and being planned. It is the place to be if you believe in free economy and free society, or simply feel curious about these concepts.
What experience you already have in terms of the biggest pro-liberty students’ conference in Europe? What are the best memories you could share?
My first contact was in Leuven, November 2011, just a few hours before the start of the first ESFLC. I still remember meeting the organisers, the excitement in the air and waiting for the first attendees to arrive. It came to be an extremely successful conference, with more 220 students from dozens of countries and most importantly, it set the ground for many future programs, projects and cooperations that followed and served as an integral part of the network in the years to come.
As one of the people who attended each and every ESFL conference in Europe since the first one organised in 2011, I can say I had the privilege of watching this event grow from a group of people meeting for the first time in Leuven, Belgium, a small student town near Brussels, to discuss ideas around which students were not gathering traditionally before in Europe. Over the next few years, it started connecting people, creating professional and personal ties between students, professionals, groups and countries. It allowed one whole generation of libertarians in Europe to grow up with like-minded students, knowing they are not alone in the way they perceived the world. It brought the ideas of liberty to thousands of students, from Leuven, through Berlin, to Prague and inspired nothing less than a movement.
What abilities and what kind of knowledge is important these days for a young person? How you could relate this with the experience and networking opportunities during the LibertyCon?
I would argue that one of the most important abilities, or characteristics if you will, is openness. Openness to new ideas. Openness to new concepts. Openness towards challenging ideas you believe in as much as those you do not feel close to. It also means humility and respect towards what we do not know as well as that knowledge we might take for granted.
One of the purposes of LibertyCon, as I see it, is to break these barriers. It is to show us that awe towards ideas and change that we feel when we are even younger, reignite that flame and gives us an itch to use those skills to change our society.
I expect one of the biggest crowds we had yet, huge amount of positive energy at one place, positive outcomes, cooperation and networks developing after. I expect that for many this will be only a beginning of a long journey through the liberty movement.
It is not a secret that a lot of different libertarian students groups are organizing a huge amount of events. Even in ESFL each autumn we have more than 20 Regional conferences, more than couple of events each week. How LibertyCon differs from them, from other – academic, libertarian, informative – types of events?
I think that LibertyCon is an event that is different than many others in its concept. It is not focused only on single aspect or notion of ideas nor it aims to attract one certain type of people. I think our program reflects that as well. We have dozens of academic talks, but also shooting activities, running around Prague, 3D printing, blockchain, dark net and start up talks, transhumanism workshops and many other out of the box activities that your usual conference will likely not include.
How you imagine the LibertyCon in the future? Will it become the biggest event not just in Europe or will it develop to event even more involving students, small and innovative communities, etc.?
I imagine it as one of the places to be if you are interested in hearing about new ideas for making the world a freer place, incorporating academics, artists, entrepreneurs, students and all those who share a vision of a free society in a unique forum which allows them to couple those ideas, make them grow and execute them.
In my mind, the name reflects the event itself — a gathering of people who believe in liberty. In the future, I hope that this name will be even more reflected in the activities and in different creative ways of expressing this feeling of liberty.
Would you recommend for a student to participate in the LibertyCon?
Absolutely. If you are a student who is already oriented towards these ideas, a whole new world will open to you and connect you to hundreds of new friends you are not aware exist yet. If these ideas are new to you, I challenge you to participate in a conference that just might be your ‘red pill‘.