The Antigua Forum: Recent Episodes
New Media UFM
The Antigua Forum is an exclusive, annual gathering of political reformers and entrepreneurs from around the world who believe in the power of human ingenuity and free enterprise to dramatically improve the well-being of people everywhere.
The Antigua Forum is a project of Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala. This page presents a series of interviews recorded during the annual gatherings.
During the tenth edition of The Antigua Forum, Connor Boyack, founder and president of Libertas Institute, shared ideas with Will Ogilvie about Libertas Institute's educational initiatives for new generations to understand and embrace the ideas of a free society.
Boyack talks about how Libertas Institute is a non-profit think tank and educational organization based in Utah which works on state and local laws to build a freer society by creating and implementing innovative policy reforms and exceptional educational resources. Due to their success, they are expanding their work outside of Utah to pass laws and affect a broader change.
“We believe that if we’re going to affect change we can’t just change short-term policies, we have to have a broader social engagement and educational program for especially the rising generation to sustain the freedoms that we hold dear.” — Connor Boyack
With Libertas Institute, Boyack established the third party doctrine, which protects data from the government, making it the biggest victory award from the state policy network. Along with his organization, he has developed The Tuttle Twins which are children’s books that teach about economics, government and liberty. The Tuttle Twins books have had lots of success, with 11 books in the market, and over two million sold copies.
“I feel like the Antigua Forum experience accelerated me five years further down the path that I would have kept stumbling through on my own.” — Connor Boyack
Boyack explains how the Antigua Forum helped him develop his idea of reaching more people through the process of collaborating with different people. He shares that during his journey he explored other alternatives to make his project effective. The organization has now around 3,000 families working on the curriculum to have a deeper learning experience.
Learn more interesting ideas from The Antigua Forum 2021!
Organized by The Antigua Forum 2021 Visit The Antigua Forum website: http://www.antiguaforum.ufm.edu/
A New Media UFM production, 2021 http://newmedia.ufm.edu
Robert Schimenz, executive director of Stossel in the Classroom (SITC), shared in conversation with Will Ogilvie ideas about the importance of critical thinking and how education should aim to teach it, during the tenth edition of The Antigua Forum.
“If you really believe in freedom, become a teacher because that is where you'll have tremendous impact.” — Robert Schimenz
Schimenz has spent over 21 years teaching high schoolers but he wanted to reach more students and give them access to different perspectives about what is happening in the world today. Along with his organization, he created content that includes videos and lesson plans for over 100,000 teachers in the United States to teach liberty to students who would not have learned it otherwise.
“We are in a battle of ideas, we can't sit back and just say “we are good now”, its gotta be an effort to continually improve.” — Robert Schimenz
Teachers who are willing to use the materials are generally those who realize that they are not providing the whole picture and by presenting the videos, students can draw their own conclusions with evidence on various issues developing critical thinking. The videos and content of Stossel in the Classroom can range from:
The unintended consequences of regulations How regulation interferes with job creation The downside of taxation
Schimenz talked about the importance of sharing the ideas of liberty though public schools to have real impact in future generations, because education is powerful.
Learn more interesting ideas from The Antigua Forum 2021!
Organized by The Antigua Forum (año) Visit The Antigua Forum website: http://www.antiguaforum.ufm.edu/
A New Media UFM production, 2021 http://newmedia.ufm.edu
Elise Westhoff, president and CEO at The Philanthropy Roundtable shared in this interview about the concept of philanthropy and its role for a free society. In her opinion, it has become more relevant during this pandemic because it's quicker than the government to help people in need. It also helps strengthen liberty because it brings together donors who have these same values and want to advance liberty.
“I think we are helping donors think strategically about how we can meet this moment and actually make change.” — Elise Westhoff
Later Westhoff talks about the challenge of bringing together donors with causes that are aligned with their values. Also shares her ideas and reflections on how to create social change. On that matter, she emphasizes that we need to be good storytellers to convey our message effectively.
“The more people we have who are talented, who understand what the next generation is thinking about, and how to reach people’s hearts rather than just their brains, the more successful we will be.” — Elise Westhoff
Westhoff was a participant of the tenth edition of The Antigua Forum, an annual event that gathers individuals from around the world, who believe in the power of human ingenuity and free enterprise to dramatically improve the well-being of people everywhere.
Get inspired with more ideas from the Antigua Forum 2021!
Organized by The Antigua Forum 2021 Visit The Antigua Forum website: http://www.antiguaforum.ufm.edu/
A New Media UFM production, 2021 http://newmedia.ufm.edu
Lenore Ealy, Senior Fellow for Communities at Charles Koch Institute, shared in conversation with Will Ogilvie ideas about the impact civil society can have on social change, during the tenth edition of The Antigua Forum.
Ealy described civil society as the work of people associating together to solve problems, based on Vincent and Elionor Ostrom’s work. Later reflects on the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought for civil society because of the imposed lockdowns and social distancing requirements that have visibilize bad examples of how civil societies worked.
“It’s really about how we develop the social norms and agreements that we’re going to operate on, and so we have seen people needing to respond and react in different ways.” — Lenore Ealy
Also talks about the educational and entrepreneurial opportunities that have emerged because of the crisis; in her opinion, people are starting to take more liberty, responsibility, and ownership on things that were usually done by governments and we are going to see great shifts in society.
“I think we are going to see new social norms emerge and they’re going to be interesting new ways people are gonna find to do things together and we’ll see what we’ve learned from this. The civil society is where that kind of learning takes place.” — Lenore Ealy
Lenore concluded that community is a prototype space that allows people to come together to define the problems and find solutions.
Organized by The Antigua Forum 2021 Visit The Antigua Forum website: http://www.antiguaforum.ufm.edu/
A New Media UFM production, 2021 http://newmedia.ufm.edu
In the midst of this year’s Antigua Forum, Bill Frezza, conducted an interview with "the father of Internet Explorer", Benjamin Slivka. He shares his trajectory on how he started to work in technology and how he got involved in the creation of the Internet Explorer project, his long periods of work and the ideas that came with it.
Later on, Slivka reveals how biotechnology is now his project of interest, and how he trusts that the work people put in this industry will save lives and also prevent poor life quality. This ends up in an interesting discussion on how new technologies and regulatory regimes will work together and how it will keep up to one another as times evolve.
We encourage you to watch the Antigua Forum interview collection, for more inspiring projects and personalities who are willing to share their most valuable ideas done with heart.
Technology is evolving at a fast pace and influencing the way we live. During this interview, Robert Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet, shares how the telecommunications business used to be back in the 1970s and how it has shifted to what it is now, based on his personal experience and life’s work.
He shares his journey when he was emerging as an engineer, and how the telecommunications market, as well as regulations, were. Emphasizing that IBM was the computer monopoly and AT&T had the telecom monopoly. Metcalfe reveals that the Ethernet was a network designed by a computer scientist and not by a communications engineer as some may believe.
Robert explains how he experienced the regulations on telecommunications and his perspective on the growth of internet gigabits that is going to be available. He expresses his high hopes and positivity towards the future of connectivity and technology, so it brings help, prosperity, and freedom to everyone.
We encourage you to watch the Antigua Forum interview collection, for more inspiring projects and personalities who are willing to share their most valuable ideas done with heart.
Daniel Rothschild has centered his work on social change and participated at the Antigua Forum 2019. He explains how exciting it is for him to work with the future of society and supporting academic research, as well as applying it to topics such as state regulatory reforms, as a way to modernize the regulatory regime and impact people’s lives.
He expresses his opinion on state reforms using Virginia as an example, where the legislature approved a law to reduce regulation affecting criminal justice and occupational licensing. Also, comments on the importance of the role of a limited government, individuals, rule of law, commerce, and more.
He shares his understanding of how to classify outcomes versus outputs, and how to begin thinking about what the outcome is that you are seeking and to then connect outputs to those results. Rothschild expresses his gratitude for participating in the Antigua Forum with people that are constantly challenged by projects including himself.
Watch the Antigua Forum collection to keep learning about the power of human ingenuity and free enterprise to improve the well-being of people everywhere.
In the midst of this year’s Antigua Forum, Daniel Green conducted an interview with entrepreneur and project owner Magatte Wade, in which she shared part of her experience, growth, and desires for the future of her country. Poverty and discrimination are some of her main concerns; so her company Skin to Skin has been working to contribute and find solutions with many projects as the one she presented titled: "Making Wakanda Real".
Wade explains her project as an opportunity to share a message on how her vision can reach others. She also hopes people acknowledge these issues so that people can work on solving them by rallying up and using everyone’s skills to bring more solutions associated with the free market, rule of law and economic freedom.
We encourage you to watch the Antigua Forum interview collection, for more inspiring projects and personalities who are willing to share their most valuable ideas done with heart.