Prometheus Foundation had a remarkable 2021, awarding nearly $5 million in grants to organizations and individuals who are promoting Ayn Rand’s works and advancing Objectivism all over the world. Here are some highlights of our grantees’ programs and activities.
(A big thank-you to Annie Vinther Sanz for gathering the material for this report.)
Students For Liberty (SFL)
Prometheus Foundation has worked with Students For Liberty (SFL) for several years to introduce students to Ayn Rand’s books and ideas through SFL’s various programs, conferences, and channels. These include SFL Academy, LibertyCon, Freer Future Fest, Learn Liberty, and SFL’s Coordinator Program. In 2021, Prometheus funded SFL’s ambitious New Frontiers of Objectivism program, which is bringing Rand’s ideas to students worldwide. (We recently funded a new SFL proposal with $2.3 million for a Prometheus Fellowship program to provide in-depth study of Rand’s ideas and Leonard Peikoff’s courses to SFL’s top students worldwide. See more on this project in the section below titled “Future Projects in the Works.”) SFL’s Prometheus-funded programs have already introduced Ayn Rand’s ideas to hundreds of thousands of students. These new programs will expand this reach and increase the depth of study by orders of magnitude.
Here’s an indication of SFL’s Objectivism-oriented programs and activities in 2021:
In April, I worked with SFL to produce a three-part video series about Ayn Rand’s ideas for their international students: Philosophy and “The Morality of Life”; Reason, Purpose, and Self-Esteem; and Individual Rights, Government, and Fundamental Philosophy. The series was live streamed and later posted to SFL’s Learn Liberty YouTube channel.
In October, SFL held its 2021 North America conference, Freer Future Fest (FFF), in Nashville, TN, with more than 400 in-person attendees and more than 600 thousand livestream views. Prometheus Foundation sponsored several presentations by fellows of Objective Standard Institute (OSI) at the event. These included a keynote talk by me on “Ayn Rand and the Future of Freedom”; a panel discussion by Jon Hersey and me on “Government as a Necessary Good”; an interview by Angelica Worth with economist Brian Caplin on “Freedom and Innovation”; a presentation by Robert Begley on “Frederick Douglass: Role Model for Freedom Fighters”; and breakout sessions by Jon Hersey and me, in which we discussed the vital importance of Rand’s ideas in the fight for freedom with SFL’s top leaders and event coordinators from around the world.
Also in October, SFL launched the first phase of its New Frontiers of Objectivism (NFO) program, which is headed by Martin Hooss. Martin created the core curriculum for the program, including a nine-hour course on Objectivism, which he has been teaching to various SFL groups in Asia.
SFL held a total of fifteen NFO events in South Asia in October—including reading groups, webinars, and courses on Objectivism—with a total of 677 participants. During the same month, SFL rolled out the NFO program in Latin America, with reading groups, webinars, and courses on Objectivism in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Venezuela. The NFO team initially planned ten events in this region, but due to high demand they held fifteen: three in Bolivia, four in Colombia, two in Guatemala, and six in Venezuela. A total of 546 students participated in these events.
SFL students and organizers in Australia heard so many good reports about these events that SFL Australia requested inclusion in the next phase of NFO courses. Martin Hooss is preparing these now. SFL’s New Frontiers of Objectivism program will expand to countries on all inhabited continents in 2022 and 2023.
In November, more than sixty SFL students took my six-hour OSI course, Introduction to Ayn Rand’s Philosophy for Loving Life, which focuses on Rand’s philosophical method and how it can help people to think more clearly, excel in life, and support liberty on solid ground.
Prometheus Foundation and SFL are working on additional projects, including the four-year Prometheus Fellowship program involving in-depth study of Rand’s works and Leonard Peikoff’s courses on Objectivism for SFL’s top students around the world.
Ayn Rand Center Europe (ARCE)
Since 2016, when ARCE was founded, the organization has delivered thirty-seven courses on Objectivism in twenty-two countries via its John Galt School (JGS) program. ARCE has received more than 2,100 applications for the program, enrolled more than 900 students, and graduated more than 600.
In 2021, ARCE organized and taught twelve JGS courses in Serbia, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Switzerland, Georgia, UK, Israel, Italy, Turkey, Peru, and Armenia. They received a total of 715 applications and selected the top 278 students to participate in the courses. The application involves writing an essay on some aspect of Objectivism and being interviewed by the ARCE team. JGS courses involve reading and discussing Rand’s works, listening to lectures, taking Leonard Peikoff’s courses, and taking quizzes and tests on the materials.
Many graduates of ARCE’s JGS courses have gone on to organize JGS courses in their own countries or regions, and several have launched their own organizations to advance Objectivism (e.g., ARC Ukraine and the Berlin Center for Individualist Thought, both mentioned in this report.)
Although ARCE’s 2021 New Intellectual’s Conference (NICON) was canceled due to lockdowns, NICON 2022 is scheduled to take place in Prague, Czech Republic in the spring. Modeled on ARCE’s Prometheus Academy conference held in Batumi, Georgia in March 2020, NICON will gather top Objectivist speakers from around the world, John Galt School alumni, and active-minded young people from all over Europe for intensive study of Objectivism, professional networking, and brainstorming about new and improved ways to advance Ayn Rand’s ideas.
In May, ARCE’s marketing team won first prize for their liberty video concept at Atlas Network’s “Lights, Camera, Liberty Workshop” in Atlanta, GA. The prize included $5,000 and a video production mentorship program. With this help, the ARCE team has created in-house video production capabilities and will be creating promotional and educational videos moving forward.
During the fall of 2021, OSI fellows Angelica and Thomas Walker-Werth (recently married) taught JGS courses hosted by ARC Ukraine, SFL UK, and ARC Israel. Likewise, Leopold Ajami (president of the Novel Philosophy Academy in Dubai) taught JGS courses to students in Peru, which were hosted by Ricardo’s Time (more on Leopold and Ricardo’s Time below).
In spring 2022, ARCE will launch a beta version of its new platform, “Objectiversity,” which is an e-learning platform incorporating study guides, articles, videos, quizzes, and tests on Objectivism.
Over the past five years, ARCE, in cooperation with the Serbian publisher, Albion Books, has ensured that Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead have been available in print at bookstores and libraries throughout Serbo-Croatian speaking countries. ARCE and Albion now have plans to publish Serbo-Croatian editions of Rand’s nonfiction and Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. They aim to publish these in 2022.
Ayn Rand Center Israel (ARCI)
ARC Israel and its CEO Boaz Arad have been funded by Prometheus Foundation (previously the Objectivist Venture Fund) since 2012. ARCI holds essay contests on Ayn Rand’s books in Hebrew, where the best essays win cash prizes. They also organize events and lectures on Objectivism for student clubs and other organizations, and offer courses to the general public, including courses on Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
In October, ARCI hosted its fifth annual Atlas Award event at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. One hundred seventy companies registered to compete for the award (up from eighty in 2019; the 2020 event was canceled due to lockdowns). Judges included executives from Amazon, Dow Group, KaryoPharm, and Start-Up Nation Central. Speakers included John Allison, Carl Barney, and several Israeli entrepreneurs. Israel’s major financial newspaper, TheMarker, published a multi-page report on the event. Dow Group and KaryoPharm have pledged to co-fund the 2022–2024 Atlas Awards.
Objective Standard Institute (OSI)
Objective Standard Institute launched its first programs in June 2020, led by Sarah Biddle and me, with funding from Prometheus Foundation. The Institute’s mission is to teach people about the importance of philosophy, the principles of Objectivism, and related ideas for living fully and advancing liberty. OSI’s general approach is to meet people at their values—whether self-development, career advancement, entrepreneurship, economics, history, art appreciation, or the art of communication—and show them how rational philosophy integrates with these values and can help them to think more clearly, live more fully, and advocate freedom more effectively.
Toward this end, OSI delivers courses, podcasts, articles, and conferences; trains new intellectuals to write, speak, and teach with precision and clarity; and works with other organizations to advance understanding of the nature and importance of philosophy in general and Objectivism in particular.
Here’s an indication of OSI’s programs and engagements in 2021.
In just twelve months, OSI:
- Brought Ayn Rand’s ideas to nearly ten million people through projects with PragerU;
- Taught twenty-one courses to 438 students;
- Produced 109 episodes of four podcasts;
- Hosted TOS-Con 2021 with sixteen world-class speakers and hundreds of in-person attendees, despite travel restrictions (TOS-Con 2022 will be in Denver, June 22–25; speakers include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Peter Boghossian, Yeonmi Park, Greg McKeown, Wolf von Laer, Amala Ekpunobi, Zilvinas Silenas, and Adam Carolla);
- Published forty-three articles on LevelUp (OSI’s blog);
- Held weekly thinking, writing, and editing sessions for OSI’s fellows;
- Gave presentations and taught seminars for organizations such as the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Students For Liberty (SFL), National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), Liberty International; and much more.
Of special note, OSI’s projects with PragerU involved creating three videos, which were produced and released on PragerU’s various channels in 2021. These videos currently have a total of 9.7 million views and more than 5,500 comments. They are:
- “Understanding Ayn Rand,” a five-minute video narrated by Gloria Alvarez, which currently has 6.3 million views and more than 3,000 comments;
- “A Book Club episode on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged,” with Michael Knowles and Eric Daniels, which now has a million plus views and more than 1,000 comments; and
- “A Dialogue about God and Ayn Rand,” with Dennis Prager and me, which currently has 2.4 million views and more than 1,500 comments.
In addition to reaching millions of people with Rand’s ideas, these videos have had a significant effect on the sales of Rand’s books. For instance, according to the top three Amazon book sales calculators (TCK Publishing, WildFire Marketing, and Kindlepreneur), in the week following the release of the Book Club episode on Atlas Shrugged, sales of the audio edition of Atlas nearly doubled, sales of the Kindle edition increased threefold, and sales of the paperback increased fourfold. Every time PragerU promotes the videos, which they’ve done several times for each, sales of Rand’s books spike again. And because OSI is credited in each video and our website is linked under each on YouTube, they have driven and continue driving significant traffic to OSI’s website, where many visitors have joined OSI’s mailing list, enrolled in OSI courses, and/or registered for TOS-Con. More projects with OSI and PragerU are in the works for 2022.
With OSI’s deep commitment to constant growth and improvement, its achievements in 2022 will dwarf those of 2021.
Adam Smith Institute (ASI)
Since 2012, Prometheus has funded Adam Smith Institute’s annual Ayn Rand Lecture. The Institute is run by Eamonn Butler who, in addition to being a fan of Rand, has authored a primer on her ideas, titled Ayn Rand: An Introduction.
ASI’s first Ayn Rand Lecture (2012) was delivered by John Allison. Since then, it has been delivered by other renowned businessmen and speakers such as Lars Seier Christensen, David Sokol, Ken Moelis, Yaron Brook, Dr. Michael Kauffman, and Johan Norberg. In November, serial entrepreneur and acclaimed author Luke Johnson delivered the ninth Ayn Rand Lecture, on the topic “Entrepreneurs: The Last Best Hope.” The event was held at the prestigious Drapers’ Hall, in London. With more than 300 in attendance, it was standing room only.
Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
Ayn Rand and Leonard Read, the founder of FEE, communicated with each other in the mid 1940s, as Read was launching FEE. Rand was constructively critical of the venture, writing Read a seven-page letter including this:
The organization desperately needed at present is one for education in individualism, in every aspect of it: philosophical, moral, political, economic—in that order. (That is the actual order in which men’s thinking proceeds on these subjects.) As part of such a program, an education in sound economics would be essential and valuable. Without it, it is a wasted effort.
I think Rand would be happy to know that FEE is now engaging with Rand’s philosophical, moral, and political ideas—and teaching them to FEE participants.
In September, Prometheus Foundation awarded FEE a grant for a pilot program (with the possibility of a much larger grant and program in the future). This pilot program involved four elements:
1. Running a series of webinars presenting Rand’s ideas to students in the National Society for High School Scholars program;
2. Providing Henry Hazlitt fellowships for three young Objectivist writers—Jon Hersey, Angelica Walker-Werth, and Thomas Walker-Werth—to write articles for FEE about freedom and economics from an Objectivist perspective;
3. Presenting Rand’s ideas on the morality of capitalism and the heroic nature of entrepreneurship to high school students during FEE’s E-Week (“E” for “Entrepreneur”); and
4. Integrating principles of Objectivism into FEE’s Learning Center, which is used by members of FEE’s high school teacher network of more than 8,000 educators.
The program is going beautifully. As an indication, 719 students attended a series of webinars on “Loving Life and Choosing Virtue,” held in June and July, and taught by Eric Daniels, Anne Rathbone Bradley, and me. Jon Hersey has published twelve articles at FEE, which have had more than 44,000 page views. (Angelica’s and Thomas’s fellowships began in January 2022.) A cohort of 213 high school students participated in the four-day E-Week program. And Andrew Bernstein is currently working with FEE on a program for FEE’s online Learning Center, titled “Markets and Morality,” involving texts, videos, exercises, and quizzes.
Novel Philosophy Academy (NPA)
Leopold Ajami founded Novel Philosophy Academy in 2019 in Dubai, where he has held workshops on the Objectivist ethics and the virtue of productiveness for General Electric Dubai, Edelman Dubai, and more. In 2021, he launched three online courses on creative thinking; published twenty episodes of his podcast, “Ideas on Trial”; and secured a position teaching “Introduction to Objectivism” at American University in Dubai.
Leopold is also working with a United Arab Emirates publisher to reprint the Arabic edition of The Virtue of Selfishness, which he and other Prometheus grantees will market and distribute throughout various Arabic-speaking countries.
As mentioned above, Leopold has taught several John Galt School courses and will teach more in 2022.
Ayn Rand Center Ukraine (ARCU)
Dmytro Usik and Daniil Lubkin founded ARCU in 2020, after hosting the first JGS course in Kiev. They identified a demand among Ukrainian students to study Objectivism in depth, and created a pilot program called the “Objectivist Thought Leader Program” (OTLP). This program teaches JGS graduates to teach Objectivism to others using Rand’s works and holding discussions, and provides tools to help them start local chapters of campus clubs or study groups.
Having proved their concept, Dmytro and Daniil applied for and were awarded a Prometheus grant to expand OTLP, which is now their flagship program. In 2021, they taught more than 100 students, several of whom have started local chapters in their hometowns in Ukraine.
In addition, Dymtro and Daniil have cooperated with the Ukrainian publisher of Ayn Rand’s novels, Nash Format (Our Format), to publish and promote Rand’s books. Nash Format has published Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and We the Living since 2014 The cooperation between Nash and ARCU will include co-sponsored events dedicated to promoting Ayn Rand and her works and discounted books for students.
With a new one-year grant, ARCU is expanding its Objectivism Campus Program and working to integrate Objectivism into university curricula, beginning with Daniil’s alma mater, Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. ARCU also has other programs in the works, such as an Intellectual Bootcamp and a YouTube channel on which they’ll discuss Ayn Rand’s essays in Russian to reach audiences throughout the Post-Soviet Union. The Intellectual Bootcamp is an annual 5-day conference for 50 Campus Program leaders, during which they’ll study Rand’s ideas under the guidance of knowledgeable Objectivists from around the world, and will discuss how to disseminate these ideas to students all over Ukraine.
Berlin Center for Individualist Thought (BCIT)
Djordje Mancev and Felix Hosse launched the Berlin Center for Individualist Thought in the summer of 2021. As one of the most cosmopolitan capitals of Europe, and one of the fastest growing hubs of tech and finance start-ups, Berlin offers a wide range of possibilities for reaching young people who want to flourish and thus are ripe for Rand’s ideas.
The core of BCIT is the Roark Academy, a school geared for teaching the principles of Objectivism to young entrepreneurs, tech people, and finance professionals in Berlin’s ever-growing startup community.
To promote BCIT and the Roark Academy and generate curiosity about Rand and her works, Djordje and Felix are leveraging Berlin’s highly active (and culturally and legally permissible) sticker/poster culture, placing “Who is John Galt?” stickers (including BCIT’s website url) in strategic places throughout Berlin. So, next time you’re in Berlin, keep an eye out!
CEVRO Institute
CEVRO Institute is a privately owned university in Prague, Czech Republic. Its president and several staff members are admirers of Ayn Rand, and in January 2019, one of its staff members, Eszter Nova, applied for Prometheus funding to establish a Minor in Objectivism for students in CEVRO’s Masters in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics program.
Eszter is working with Martin Hooss and Andrew Bernstein to improve the curriculum for the courses constituting the minor in Objectivism. Martin himself finished two Masters programs at CEVRO last spring, with a minor in Objectivism, and is now running the New Frontiers of Objectivism program for Students For Liberty.
Also in 2021, Eszter helped to have The Virtue of Selfishness published in Hungarian, her native language.
(Worth noting: A young Belarusian man, Piotr Markiełaŭ, who is currently a PP&E student and minoring in Objectivism at CEVRO, is internationally famous for having stood up to the Belarus despot, for which he was arrested and tortured several times during the past year. Fortunately, he is now out of Belarus, in safety in Prague, and studying Objectivism.)
Kalin Manolov
Prometheus Foundation has funded several of Kalin Manolov’s projects since January 2016. Kalin’s main objectives have been to translate, publish, and promote Ayn Rand’s works in Bulgarian via his publishing house, MaK Publishing.
In 2020, MaK republished in Bulgarian Rand’s For the New Intellectual, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and The Virtue of Selfishness. Kalin has promoted the books at various events hosted by his organization Atlas Laissez Faire Institute. In March 2021, MaK published the first Bulgarian edition of Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Kalin is working with the Bulgarian Ministry of Education to distribute these books to high schools and to make them part of their curriculum. He is also distributing free copies of the books to high school and university libraries throughout Bulgaria, in exchange for which librarians are displaying and promoting the books in their libraries. Kalin is currently working to publish more Bulgarian editions of Rand’s and Peikoff’s works.
Timothy Sandefur
Timothy Sandefur (a prolific writer and vice president for litigation at the Goldwater Institute) has written a book on Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand’s efforts to defend liberty in an age of tyranny. The book covers the works of these three great women and their relationships between 1925 and 1945. It describes their novels and their nonfiction writings and explains how their writing was influenced by the literature and the politics of the day, especially by the work of Sinclair Lewis and by the advent of the New Deal. The book, tentatively titled “The Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Freedom in an Age of Tyranny,” is scheduled for publication in November 2022. Prometheus Foundation provided Timothy a grant to enable publication and marketing of the book through the Cato Institute.
“Ricardo’s Time” Podcast
Ricardo’s Time was launched in 2020 by the young Peruvian student, Ricardo Ibañez. As a teenager having grown up in a culture dominated by collectivism in general and Catholicism in particular, Ricardo started questioning these norms and began searching YouTube for alternative philosophies. There he found videos of Ayn Rand explaining her philosophy. The clarity and precision of her words appealed to him immediately, and inspired him to study Objectivism.
Ricardio soon launched Ricardo’s Time, a video-podcast dedicated to raising awareness of Rand’s ideas, the nature and importance of Objectivism, and how its principles apply to everyday life. Since its inception, Ricardo’s Time has published fourty videos discussing Objectivism with various Objectivists (both Spanish and English speakers). He will continue and expand the podcast in 2022, and with a newly awarded grant from Prometheus Foundation, he is collaborating with other organizations and individuals in the Prometheus Network to create John Galt Schools and Objectivism study groups throughout Latin America.
Turkish Objectivist Network (TON)
The Turkish Objectivist Network was established in 2020 after Orçun Koçak and Özgür Özer attended the Prometheus Academy in Batumi (hosted by ARCE). Özgür had attended TOS-Con in 2019, and both young men had been involved in SFL’s Leadership Program for years. Inspired by these events and programs, they launched TON and began cooperating with established free market think tanks in Turkey to advance Ayn Rand’s ideas.
During the past year, Orçun and Özgür have taught JGS courses online (in Turkish) as well as webinars on Objectivism, and they have produced videos discussing how Objectivism applies to various issues in life. These are available on YouTube ( in Turkish). They are now working to disseminate their programs in other countries in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa).
Orçun and Özgür are currently working with seven representatives from five MENA countries—Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq—and throughout 2022, they plan to travel to these countries and help establish local Objectivism study groups. Leopold Ajami will work with them to establish an Objectivism study group in Lebanon (his native country). During their trips in the Middle East, Orçun and Özgür will discuss and distribute the Arabic edition of The Virtue of Selfishness.
Ayn Rand Center Holland and Ayn Rand Center Morocco (ARCH and ARCM)
Ayn Rand Center Holland was launched in 2020 by Yernaz Ramautarsing, who has advocated Objectivism in The Netherlands for many years. The main objective of ARCH was to hand out pamphlets with essays on Objectivism to university students on various campuses and invite them to participate in ARCH’s book club program, in which students read and discuss Rand’s works. Due to Covid lockdowns that began shortly after this program was funded, Yernaz pivoted to proceed another way. He began working with Anis Benhayyoun, who runs Ayn Rand Center Morocco and holds a masters degree in PPE with a minor in Objectivism from CEVRO Institute, and they began producing videos in Dutch on Objectivism and its applications.
One of their videos discusses the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” from an Objectivist perspective, comparing it with Ellsworth Toohey’s speech in The Fountainhead. The video has more than 3,000 views, and Anis has received many positive messages from viewers (e.g., “I bought The Fountainhead. I want to learn more about this”), and some have applied to join the ARC Holland book club.
Anis is also spearheading various programs in Morocco (his ancestral country) to advance Ayn Rand’s ideas. He is currently creating a bilingual website (Arabic and French) with articles and essays by Rand (with permission from the publisher) and from The Objective Standard (with permission). In 2022, in cooperation with Leopold Ajami and the Turkish Objectivist Network, Anis will create video content in Arabic on Objectivism. Also in 2022, he will visit universities throughout Morocco to establish local Objectivism student groups and distribute copies of The Virtue of Selfishness in Arabic.
Ayn Rand Center Georgia (ARCG)
Irakli Iagorashvili completed the first JGS course in Georgia (i.e., the country) in 2019. Then, on his own time and dime, he launched Ayn Rand Center Georgia and began organizing, hosting, and teaching JGS courses. With delight, he received more than 200 applications for the autumn 2021 course. JGS courses permit a maximum of 25 students, so Irakli is working now to meet the clear demand for more courses in the region.
Irakli is also producing weekly podcasts discussing and applying Objectivism, and running twice-monthly study groups with students at both the University of Georgia and Free University. Further, in cooperation with Annie Vinther Sanz, director of operations at Prometheus Foundation, Irakli is engaging with the Bank of Georgia’s investment bank, fittingly called Galt & Taggart, to fund publications of more of Rand’s works in Georgian. (Galt & Taggart already has funded publications of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.)
Ayn Rand Center Belarus (ARCB)
In September 2021, Alisa (her name has been changed for safety and security) received a Prometheus grant to organize Ayn Rand study groups at various locations in Belarus. With the current political turmoil in Belarus, she sees huge potential for reaching young people who are eager for ideas in support of freedom, and thus ripe for Ayn Rand’s ideas.
In 2022, Alisa will work with Ayn Rand Center Ukraine on a series of YouTube videos that discuss Rand’s essays in Russian, which will be promoted in all Russian speaking post-Soviet countries, including Belarus.
Ayn Rand Center Russia (ARCR)
Mariia Ivanchikova, founder of Ayn Rand Center Russia, received a Prometheus grant in September 2021 and is currently organizing a series of mini-conferences on Objectivism in Moscow and St. Petersburg (two in each city) to attract and connect with students who are interested in studying Rand’s ideas and promoting them in Russia. Mariia plans to work with these students to set up local Ayn Rand study groups all over the country and to re-launch the annual Ayn Rand Commemoration Conferences in St. Petersburg around the date of Rand’s birthday.
As with Alisa in Belarus, Mariia will cooperate with ARC Ukraine on the series of Russian YouTube videos discussing Rand’s essays.
Galt Media Center Brazil
The Galt Media Center in Brazil is run by Bruno Lippy who founded it in 2014. His goal is to disseminate Ayn Rand’s ideas and to promote a culture based on rationality, independence, rational selfishness, and laissez-faire capitalism. Toward this end, he is:
1. Translating and publishing articles in Portuguese in his monthly publication, Revista Galt (i.e., Galt Magazine). These are mainly translations of TOS articles (with permission).
2. Producing a weekly podcast, “A Menor Minoria” (The Smallest Minority), which focuses on the principles of Objectivism and their applications to personal, social, and political issues.
3. Distributing Boletim Galt (Galt Newsletter), a weekly publication focusing on current events from an Objectivist perspective and highlighting posts on social networks that promote Rand’s ideas.
There are more than 200 million Portuguese speakers worldwide, and Bruno is tailoring his content and marketing to reach active-minded young Portuguese speakers who are interested in philosophy for flourishing.
Jason Hill
In July, Jason Hill received a grant to market his book What Do White Americans Owe Black People, in which he explores various issues pertaining to race in America today, including the collectivist premises behind race-oriented debates.
Project Arizona and Liberty International
Prometheus Foundation has been co-funding Jacek Spendel’s Project Arizona for the past five years. Project Arizona is a semester-long program for ambitious young people in the liberty movement to attend internships (at Goldwater Institute, among others) and academic seminars at Arizona State University. As a part of this program, students attend day-long workshops on Objectivism. Carl Barney and I taught one such workshop in January at Carl’s home; Jon Hersey will teach another in Arizona this March.
Jacek also runs the Liberty International conferences, including the 2021 conference in Medellin, Colombia, where Jon Hersey gave several talks (see the OSI section above). Jacek is currently working on a proposal with the Freedom and Entrepreneurship Foundation in Poland (his native country) to engage with ARC Europe and Berlin Center for Individualist Thought to advance Objectivism in Poland.
Future Projects in the Works
As the Prometheus Network advances and expands, we are receiving an increasing number of applications and requests for cooperation. Here are a few of the projects and possibilities in the pipeline.
Students For Liberty
With a recent $2.3 million grant from Prometheus Foundation, Wolf von Laer and his SFL team are creating a four-year Prometheus Fellowship program featuring enhanced education, training, and mentorship focused on Ayn Rand’s ideas. They are selecting the most talented, best educated, most qualified, most experienced SFL students in the world, and equipping them with a thorough and deep understanding of Objectivism and the work of Ayn Rand. The Prometheus Fellowship program is now the flagship program of Students For Liberty.
Prometheus on Campus (UK)
With a recent grant from Prometheus Foundation, Maxwell (Max) Marlow is creating a campus club program called Prometheus on Campus (UK) to introduce university students to Ayn Rand and Objectivism. This program will leverage the vast network of the Adam Smith Institute, with which Max has worked. Prometheus on Campus (UK) will work to expand awareness and knowledge of Objectivism across the British Russell Group (equivalent to America’s Ivy League schools) via campus talks, debates, reading groups, and seminars.
Foundation for Economic Education
Zilvinas Silenas and his team at FEE want to expand the programs they successfully ran during their pilot, which includes creating more webinars in their Character Development Series, adding more Ayn Rand Fellows to their future cohorts, adding more Objectivism content to their Learning Center platform, and training high school teachers in the morality of capitalism. We are currently discussing this plan and substantial funding from Prometheus Foundation to support it.
Goldwater Institute
Timothy Sandefur and his partners at Goldwater Institute want to launch a fellowship program for newly graduated law school students who will be trained in applying and advancing the principles of objective law. As a pilot program, they plan to bring on one fellow in 2022 and train him in the principles of objective law and how they apply to actual cases and courtrooms. Ultimately they aim to establish this as a regular fellowship at Goldwater Institute.
America’s Future
Cindy Cerquitella and her team at America’s Future want to develop and launch a series of educational events involving America’s Future city chapters, regional hubs, and national membership programs. Each chapter and hub will have a menu of event format options from which to select for advancing Objectivism. Events will include book discussions, debates, workshops, trivia games, public forums, and expert speakers on Objectivism and the works of Ayn Rand.
Prometheus Powwows
Annie and I continue meeting regularly with the Prometheus Foundation grantees at online “Prometheus Powwows,” during which we discuss achievements, goals, challenges, and opportunities for cooperation. Participants exude excitement about their success stories and plans, and they often find opportunities in real time for cooperating and engaging with each other.
There’s a whole lot of good going on. Prometheus Foundation is happy to be fueling it.
To freedom and flourishing!
Sincerely,
Craig Biddle
Executive Director
Prometheus Foundation
[email protected]
