We’re leaving Belgrade recharged, inspired and more determined, after spending three intensive but amazing days at #libertycon18 alongside 750 other young, smart & amazing liberty-fighters from all across the world. We went there to present the IES summer seminars to students and we ended up making friends, reconnecting with old ones and creating wonderful memories. It’s unbelievably easy to interact with people when you know they ultimately have the same ideals as you have, to make this world more peaceful and free, using culture, ideas, voluntary action, collaboration and entrepreneurship.
LibertyCon is this massive annual event organized by the amazing European Students for Liberty team with the purpose of gathering hundreds if not thousands of liberty oriented students, artists, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, influencers, think tank and NGO leaders in order to create a bigger network of like-minded people who share the ability to make a change. From the well-known economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey to the famous David D. Friedman, Jamie Bartlett, the Free the People couple, Terry & Matt Kibbe, Alexander McCobbin, Yaron Brook and many other impressive people, to all the partners, students, volunteers and participants everyone worked, debated ideas and of course partied (in our special libertarian way) together offering and receiving the same respect everyone in this wonderful global community deserves.
All the credits for this amazing event go to European Students for Liberty. And now I want to talk a bit about them, as I know my Romanian folks are not very acquainted with this great organisation’s impressive work. As their mission statement says “Students For Liberty exists to provide support for pro-liberty students and student groups in Europe”. Their mission is to develop, educate and empower the next generation of leaders in the global liberty movement which is exactly what they are doing in 100 countries, through smaller and bigger local chapters. They’re the ones winning people’s hearts and minds, through protests, debates, trainings, festivals, talks and parties. They’re playing the long-term difficult game, sometimes with very limited resources, but with amazing strength and determination. They grow together, learn from their mistakes, deliver results and spread the ideas of liberty on all continents. All those who have ever organised even a small event know how much work these kinds of things involve. Coordinating simultaneous activities, having more than 30 speakers, a liberty fair, parties, a VIP dinner and an open air party with hunderds of participants, all comparable to events organised by top corporations with almost unlimited budgets but organised by a handful of young people is a big deal. And this is only a small part of what they have managed to do recently. Without exhausting you with numbers think about this, ESFL in the last fiscal year means 170 events only in Europe with 8271 attendees. Add to that 20 leadership forums and the results are worthy of tons of applauses. Luca, Milica, Julia, Michal, Kevin, Wolf, Aleksandar and the rest of the ESFL team, you are all amazing people and we’ll always try to support your work. Thank you for having us at LibertyCon18!
We really hope we’ll manage to gather a team of enthusiast young Romanians who’ll manage to import the ESFL successful model back home, as it is such a pity we don’t have a strong local chapter in this former communist country that needs liberty today more than ever. #libertycon18 #expressyourself
