We are a week away from what promises to be a most interesting conference in Indianapolis. The speakers are a great draw for this event. Each is a trailblazer in their respective fields! With the theme, “The Advance of Liberty: Challenges and Opportunities Around the Globe,” participants of this Atlas/Sagamore co-sponsored conference will have the opportunity to be at the receiving end of the wisdom and practical knowledge of this excellent group of speakers whose workhave made a deep impact in advancing political and economic freedoms, here and abroad. Their vision and sense of accomplishment have enabled them to participate in solving some of the world’s major problems, for which we all have benefited.
Steve Goldsmith, our keynote speaker and former mayor of Indianapolis, has turned Indianapolis into a model city worthy to emulate. Dubbed as the pioneering privatizer of public services, he offers to other local officials important lessons in city management, one that uses a combined, innovative public-private approach.
Mike Walker, founder and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, and Roger Pardo-Maurer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the Pentagon, have been involved in trade issues affecting the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Walker has written voluminously about economic issues affecting Canada, and is an expert on NAFTA. Pardo-Maurer is an expert on Mexico, but his other major accomplishments are related to his military service, including serving with the Southern Front of the Nicaraguan Resistance and combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ulrich Wacker, regional director for Latin America of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, has organized projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before he was assigned in Mexico. Felipe Kast is director of the Social Program of Libertad y Desarrollo where he is in charge of analyzing and designing a broad range of social policies.A Ph.D. graduate of Harvard, he is also a research affiliate of the Poverty Actional Lab, a research network based on MIT.
Our president, Alex Chafuen, who has spearheaded the growth of Atlas from its early beginnings to what it is today, will take this opportunity to talk about Atlas’s academic outreach in the US and abroad.
The second half of the conference, which is being sponsored by the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, will feature Una Okonkwo Osili of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, and Joseph Ritchie, economic adviser to Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Osili has been conducting studies on development economics focusing on migration, micro financing, and community-level financial institutions in Nigeria and Indonesia. Ritchie has been known as one of the two businessmen who turned Rwanda from a war-torn, ethnic-ravaged country into an African economic miracle.
Deroy Murdock, senior fellow at Atlas and a nationally syndicated columnist, will introduce Steve Goldsmith. Chip Weiant, senior fellow at Sagamore and director of its American Center for Civic Character, and Jay Hein, president of Sagamore and former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, have graciously agreed to be moderators.
So if you’re in the area, please don’t miss out on this conference. There is still time to register. Deadline is October 16th. Registration is free. The link to our online registration.
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