OPEN SUMMIT
2023

John Tomasi is the founding president of the Heterodox Academy, an NGO that promotes freedom of expression in science. He holds a doctorate in philosophy and has taught at Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, and Brown. As an author, he has published numerous books, including “The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism,” published this year by Princeton University Press. After 25 years, he resigned from his professorship to devote himself entirely to his heartfelt concerns of academic freedom and the advancement of liberal philosophy.

Salpi Özgür is the founder and director of the Freedom and Citizenship Association.

Her work is driven by her belief in a free market society, individualism and taking responsibility. Previously, she worked in various civil society organizations in the freedom movement and contributed to the development of liberalism in Turkey.

In addition to her work in civil society organizations, she is also a renowned international speaker.

Emma Felsenstein is the Director of Programs at Imagine Foundation, where she currently oversees all operations and programs for students, fellows, and volunteers. She has previously worked at several tech startups and has a passion for building communities and scaling teams.

Sam Bowman is founder and editor of Works in Progress, Stripe’s online magazine for economic and technological progress, and a board member at the Mercatus Center. He became Executive Director of London’s Adam Smith Institute in his mid-twenties, ranking it among the top three economic policy think tanks in the world. Sam makes it his mission to cast neoliberalism in a positive light, and to meet the challenges of our time with a belief in progress and optimism.

Claudia is the Head of Partnerships at Imagine Foundation and currently handles institutional, corporate and enterprise partnerships. She loves networks and international relations and has previously worked in global mobility, immigration and education. She is an enthusiast of social entrepreneurship and researches its development in Europe.

Philipp is a PhD student at the Human Technology Center of RWTH Aachen University and researches innovation-driven transformation processes in the Rhenish coalfield using the example of the semiconductor innovation project NeuroSys. A special focus is on the role of imagination and visions of the future with which different actors influence the upcoming transformation. Philipp studied Responsibility in Science, Engineering, and Technology (RESET) at TUM and Philosophy & Economics in Bayreuth. In his research, he uses concepts and methods from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and transformation research. Through his research, Philipp seeks to understand how research and innovation can be coupled with societal expectations and ethical values under modern economic and political conditions.

Judith Henke is a journalist in the investment team of the Handelsblatt and previously worked for two years in the investigative department of the WELT. She deals with commodities and regularly does investigative research on investment fraud, consumer issues, money laundering and real estate speculation. Prior to that, she studied economics at the University of Cologne and completed her journalism training at the Cologne School of Journalism.

Dr. Stefano Cozzolino is Senior Researcher at ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development (Dortmund) and lecturer at RWTH (Aachen). He is also coordinator of the Ethics, Values and Planning thematic group of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP). His main research interests are spontaneous socio-spatial configurations in complex urban environments and how urban planning and design can facilitate self-adaptive change processes. His work in this area has been published in several prestigious academic journals, including Environment and Planning B, URBAN DESIGN International, Land Use Policy, CITIES, Journal of Urban Design, European Planning Studies, and Journal of Planning Education and Research. He obtained his PhD from the Polytechnic University of Milan (2017).

Helena Bach was born in Bergisch Gladbach in 1997 and grew up in Bonn, Königswinter and London.

She studied economics at Humboldt University in Berlin, Aalto University in Helsinki, the Technical University and Freie Universität Berlin. She was sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

She regularly organizes cultural salons in Berlin, Bonn and Munich.

Helena lives and paints in Berlin.

Next exhibition: October 19, 2023 to January 31, 2024, Potsdam.

The former teacher was director of the Free Market Foundation when he entered politics in 2015. He won a by-election as an independent and broke the ruling party’s two-thirds majority in February 2015, serving in Parliament and remaining an independent until 2018. He is currently Government Affairs Manager of the Consumer Choice Center, an international grassroots organization that advocates against government overregulation on behalf of consumers.
He is the author of 9 English-language course books. Zoltán is the proud father of 4 boys and a girl. In his free time, he enjoys playing with his kids, reading good novels, watching NFL or just drinking coffee in his backyard.

Philipp J.A. Hartmannsgruber is a board member at Blockchain Bundesverband e.V. (Bundesblock) and founder of PJAH Consulting, a consultancy specializing in blockchain and digital money topics. He was able to bring his expertise to the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe (SFG) at the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV) as a consultant for digital money & digital assets. Previously, he was Head of Corporates & Digital Markets at CM-Equity AG and Head of Operations at Bundesblock. He writes articles on the digital euro, blockchain technology, Bitcon as well as the Metaverse and runs his own podcast.

Dr. Tomasz F. Krawczyk – born in Rostock and raised by a Hanseatic grandmother, came of age in Poland; philosopher of constitutional law, expert on Europe, former European policy advisor to the Polish Prime Minister and scientific advisor to the Presidential Office of Prof. Lech Kaczyński; Beethoven, Mahler, Grönemeyer, di Fabio and Bayern Munich fan.

Markus Kressler is a social entrepreneur with many years of start-up and leadership experience in education, technology & sustainability. He is currently co-founder of Match Talent Initiative, which supports migrants and refugees in Germany in their professional qualification and integration.

His involvement in psychosocial counseling for refugees led him to co-found Kirons, an international education platform for refugees, in 2015. Markus Kressler also helped build Germany’s first digital volunteering platform, Alltagsheld.org. His professional career and his psychology studies enabled him to intensively deal with social-entrepreneurial challenges and digital solution approaches in the context of education, technology and migration. In his current position at Match Talent, his focus is mainly on business development, product, sales & partnerships.

Harrison is Communications Officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He graduated from the University of Exeter in 2021 studying politics, before getting his MA in American History and Politics from University College London. Harrison has also completed the Marcatus Center’s Don Lavoie Fellowship in political economy. Outside of the free market sphere, Harrison is an avid fan of football, road cycling, athletics, motorsport, and American football – although not particularly talented in any of the above.

Martin Milbradt studied mathematics at Humboldt University and has been working as an IT freelancer for several years. He discovered Effective Altruism when he was looking for objective, scientific and up-to-date information on COVID in early 2020.
His desire to make the world a better place for everyone and to secure our future has only intensified over the years, so much so that he has been involved in organizing the Berlin local group and in various national and international projects since the beginning of the year.

Oscar Zollman Thomas, Impact Manager, leads Formo’s research into the introduction, acceptance and impact of precision-fermentation, partnering with NGOs and universities to communicate the industry’s potential, as well as building the company’s internal impact strategy.

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