The Academy will consist of three lectures and discussions over two weeks. You will have the chance to interact with our experts, learn about the history of Bitcoin, why it matters for human rights and privacy, as well as discuss how to make it useful in your life.

Session 1
Date: January 25, 2021, 12 PM EST
Topic: Bitcoin: The Best Shot at Achieving Liberty
Speaker: Dr. Wolf von Laer

Session 2
Date: January 27, 2021, 12 PM EST
Topic: Bitcoin Economics and Privacy
Speaker: Stephan Livera

Session 3
Date: February 3, 2021, 12 PM EST
Topic: What’s the connection between Bitcoin and human rights?
Speaker: Alex Gladstein

Dr. Wolf von Laer is the Chief Executive Officer of Students For Liberty. Wolf received his Ph.D. in Political Economy at King’s College London in March 2017. Wolf lived and studied in the US, Turkey, Spain, Germany, the UK, Sweden, and Argentina. He has published several book chapters, a book about central banking, and a peer-reviewed journal article. Wolf has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Forbes, the Huffington Post, Bitcoin Magazine, Coindesk, and CSPAN. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.

Stephan Livera is a host of the Stephen Livera Podcast, recognized in the industry as one of the world’s leading Bitcoin podcasts: it has a 4.9 star average across 600+ ratings globally and over 2M downloads, being ranked in the top 0.5% of podcasts globally. As an individual, Stephan is ranked in the top 10 globally on the hive.one/bitcoin cluster listing, an algorithmic scoring of relevance or influence in the Bitcoin space.

Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. In his work, Alex has connected hundreds of dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, technologists, journalists, philanthropists, policymakers, and artists to promote free and open societies. Alex’s writing and views on human rights and technology have appeared in media outlets across the world including the Atlantic, BBC, CNN, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, NPR, TIME, the Washington Post, WIRED, and the Wall Street Journal. He has spoken at universities ranging from MIT to Stanford, briefed the European Parliament and US State Department, and serves as faculty at Singularity University and as an advisor to Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the fintech industry. He frequently speaks and writes about why Bitcoin matters for freedom, and co-authored “The Little Bitcoin Book” in 2019.