LibertyCon 2017: The End Will Lead to a New Start
Prague, Czech Republic — LibertyCon, formerly known as the European Students for Liberty Conference, is an international student conference which took place at the Law Faculty of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic on March 17-19th 2017. It was the perfect place to meet pro-liberty students and young professionals from all over the world.
“Even though many were tired after all the lectures, workshops and parties there was still a great atmosphere on Sunday and the final sessions were packed. There was electricity in the air, ESFLers were charged up and ready to continue spreading the cause of liberty in their home countries” said Kevin Flanagan, the Local Coordinator Program Manager at ESFL.
The third day of LibertyCon was full of lectures. Giacomo Zucco presented his ideas on the political roots and consequences of the bitcoin revolution, David Karasek on firearm laws, Dominik Stroukal on pessimism and Mikolaj Pisarski on liberty and its relationship to identity.
“Today there was a lot of input from top-notch scholars, journalists, entrepreneurs and activists that truly helped to broaden one’s horizon” said ESFL Events and Communications Associate Michal Šindlar.
The second block of lectures were presented by Edouard Hesse, Stefan Kolev, Christian Michel, and Julio Alejandro. They discussed surrogacy and genetic engineering, the sharing economy and privatisation and post-nation states.
The highlight of the day was a speech given by Tom G. Palmer, the executive vice president for international programs at the Atlas Network. He discussed anti-libertarian ideologies on the march: Trump, Le Pen, Putin and the existential threat to liberty.
“LibertyCon is the the ultimate conference for liberty minded people. It’s the one place where we come back every year to share our stories of success, stories of adversity, and where we discuss ideas on how to make liberty more prevalent in Europe and the world in the upcoming year” expressed Ivan Bertovič, ESFL Board Member.
During the European Students For Liberty Awards, Mariia Chaplia was awarded the Student of the Year Award. SFL Georgia was awarded Group of the Year, and the Event of the Year award went to “Uberization of the world”.
