If you need inspiration, Ayn Rand Center Ukraine is the place for you. During February 2023, they not only held their third annual Intellectual Bootcamp, but also gave away their second round of Ayn Rand Awards for Advancing Liberty!
The second Intellectual Bootcamp conference, held February 2–5, 2023, brought together a diverse group of forty participants, all eager to engage in a transformative intellectual journey. It was a four-day conference that included seminars by Thomas and Angel Walker-Werth, Leopold Ajami, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Natalie Valevska, Daria Ozerna, Dmytro Boyarchuk, Lyubomyr Ostapiv, Anton Yevtushok, Natalia Melnyk, and Catherine Zhuchen. Participants also visited the Kiev Innovation Terminal of Nova Posta to see firsthand the importance of having an entrepreneurial culture in every society, even (or especially) at times of crisis, such as during the war currently being inflicted upon the Ukrainian people by Russia.
After the bootcamp, participants attended the Ayn Rand Awards for Advancing Liberty. This is the second year these Awards have been handed out by ARCU, and it is only getting better. This year ARCU gave away four awards, and the list goes as follows:
- Best Think Tank of 2022: Dejure Foundation won the award, for their advocacy of judicial reform in Ukraine. CASE Ukraine (for campaigns to counter Russian propaganda) and Open Minds Institute (for the advocacy campaign “Cancelation of Acts of Work Done”) were also nominated for this award.
- Best Freedom Advocate of 2022: This award was handed to the director of the Bendukidze Free Market Center, Natalia Melnyk, for promoting the values of economic freedom in Ukraine. Other nominees were entrepreneur and educator Yana Matviychuk, and American special correspondent for the Kyiv Post, Jason Jay Smart.
- Best Media of 2022: Economia Pravda won this award, for its long-standing, high quality economic journalism, for its media team’s rapid adaptation to the conditions of a full-scale war, and for its special project to support businesses after the war.
- Best Business of 2022: The winner of this title was Nova Posta, for maintaining high standards of work during the war and even expanding into new markets, as well as for its humanitarian projects and financial assistance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
At Prometheus Foundation, we are incredibly proud and happy to be helping such bright minds from the Ukraine to spread the ideas of Ayn Rand and help rebuild their own community with the virtues of rationality, productiveness, and pride. Onwards and upwards!
