I received invitations to attend few free-market conferences from USA forwarded by people from my network and had the aim of organization partnerships in promoting free-market ideas in India along with IFF/YBN core team members. I along with 4 other IFF/YBN team members attended Acton University, a four-day conference on faith, economics, and entrepreneurship organized by Acton Institute for the study of religion and liberty. We got a chance to meet many free-market economists and business leaders across USA and globe. Acton institute’s works on entrepreneurship are very impressive and very important such as documentaries of “the call of the entrepreneurs” and “poverty Inc” and hero’s journey etc. I found this conference really interesting as a spiritual (not a religious person).
Then my journey headed towards my visit to Chicago. There, I learned its culture, history, and stories of the economic rise of such vibrant city. I met pioneer educational entrepreneur Marsha Enright who also is the founder of Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute and discussed collaborations to expand their flagship project “Great connection seminars” to India and Asia in 2017.
Later, I visited Seattle to attend OCON (Objectivist Annual conference) organized by Ayn Rand Institute where many youngsters can learn about the fundamentals of the understanding of objectivism and Rand’s excellent work on the philosophy of life. I met objectivist scholars, libertarian and objectivist business leaders who advocate the ideas of Rand. Similarly, I met John Allison president of Cato Institute, Chairman, and CEO for BB&T (a major American financial corporation). OCON is really a great conference to understand the purpose of life and how to build a successful career by utilizing the powerful philosophy of Rand. Few of objectivists agreed to help us to promote Rand’s ideas and capitalism in India and Asia.
There were many perks of traveling across the country to understand the foundation and practical implementation of ideas of liberty in Americans daily life. I tried couch surfing and staying with a genius local person for free of cost with help of couch surfing website. This is the best cultural exchange I ever got in my life. I tried to understand not only how an American youngster thinks, works and lives but only learned the culture of Latin’s and Europeans from my fellow couch surfers. Coach surfing is one of best entrepreneurial innovation in this decade.
My next destination was to Entertainment capital of world Las Vegas for two amazing conferences, Atlas Summit and Freedom Fest. Atlas summit is a conference on open objectivism where you can celebrate and discuss and debate about reason, achievement, and ethical self-interest. It was started great inspiring lectures of by heroic lady Jennifer Grossman (CEO- Atlas society) and David Kelley (strong philosopher on open objectivism) and experienced very igniting talks on Ayn Rand and her ideas. This is one of best conference I have ever attended and learned about how one can apply a philosophy to our lives and build our future especially in areas of successful business and wealth creation.
I also initiated discussions with TAS staff members regarding collaboration with IFF India and The Atlas society to run projects on philosophy, entrepreneurship, and economics.Finally, at the world’s largest libertarian conference, Freedom Fest was truly amazing Talks by inspiring libertarian advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, media personalities, leading liberty politicians like Rand Paul and Garry Johnson among many other was the delight of the program. It was a very diverse conference which orchestrated a platform to (people and organizations) to learn and inspire about the common value of liberty and free markets.
I had few talks with few pro-liberty organizations to collaboration and some for our future projects in India. Also, I had many discussions on agendas of future with vital organizations like Liberty Fund, Foundation for Economic Education, Leadership Institute, Liberty International and Benjamin Rush institute among others. Apart from that, Pitch Tank competition was very inspiring where 20 startups were competing to win $25,000 and raise investments supported by Freedom Fest Mark Skousen founder and Angel investor Network and a nationwide network of angel groups and investors.
