The 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum, an international events series highlighting human rights activism, will host a Bitcoin Academy as one of its three programming tracks on October 4 and 5 in Miami, emphasizing the potential that this technology has for enabling freedom and sovereignty around the world.
A dedicated Bitcoin room at the event’s New World Theater venue will gather Bitcoin educators and promoters with attending human rights activists, policymakers and philanthropists, providing overviews and hands-on workshops to demonstrate how anyone in the world can access financial freedom through Bitcoin.
“The goal of the Bitcoin Academy is to put 100-plus dissidents and human rights activists from more than 40 countries in the same room as the world’s top Bitcoin educators and builders for two days,” explained Alex Gladstein, the chief strategy officer for Human Rights Foundation, which organizes the forum. “We’ll make meaningful strides towards teaching global communities how to achieve financial freedom and privacy in an increasingly controlled and surveilled world, and we’ll also get fresh ideas into the Bitcoin community from some of the most creative and brave individuals on the planet, who work daily under incredibly adversarial environments.”
As a free and open-source software, the Bitcoin network can be accessed by anyone, in any part of the world with an internet connection. It has proven to be a powerful tool for protest groups seeking to collect donations in the face of financial services bans, such as those supporting Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement. And it can provide a lifeline of financial savings for people whose fiat currency is unduly manipulated and devalued by authoritarian governments.
Through the Bitcoin Academy programming, the Oslo Freedom Forum seeks to enable more groups in need of such a permissionless, decentralized financial network to access it by demystifying its history, operations and practicality.
“Programming will focus on global Bitcoin adoption, the political history of Bitcoin, getting hands-on with the Lightning Network, learning how to receive donations and income in bitcoin, learning how to spend your bitcoin, learning how to sell bitcoin for fiat currency, learning how to use Bitcoin privately, learning about leveling up your security with multi-sig, discussing who controls Bitcoin, why Bitcoin mining is important, and sharing lessons from El Zonte about how to build a Bitcoin community,” per the Oslo Freedom Forum website.
Bitcoin Academy presenters and instructors include Elizabeth Stark, the CEO and founder of Lightning Network development firm Lightning Labs; Rockstar Dev, developer for open-source bitcoin payment processor BTCPay Server and Lightning Network platform Strike; Ray Youssef, the CEO of global Bitcoin exchange Paxful; and many more high-profile Bitcoin experts.
The Oslo Freedom Forum is currently accepting applications to apply.