Event date:
September 15, 2023
The sixth annual International Symposium will offer an open forum for debate between Czech and international experts, academics, representatives of the non-profit sector, politicians and the public. Renowned thinkers will once again come together in Prague to seek answers to the key questions of the day - for example, how new technologies, including artificial intelligence, will affect the future of freedom and democracy. The subtitle of the 2025 edition is Freedom and Innovation in the Technological Age. Discussions will focus not only on technological challenges, but also on topics such as freedom of speech or how to choose political leaders in an increasingly polarised society.
The symposium will take place on Friday 12 September 2025 in Prague, at the Pražská křižovatka in the Old Town of Prague. Lectures of foreign speakers will be simultaneously interpreted into Czech. Come and listen to top-class speakers and join the discussion on the future of democracy.
The entire programme of the symposium will be held in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Czech language.
George Washington University
Jonathan Turley is an American lawyer, writer, commentator and analyst working in a number of American media outlets. He is also a professor at George Washington University Law School. Turley is an advocate of the First Amendment to the Constitution and writes frequently about restrictions on free speech in the private and public sectors. He is also the author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
Topic: The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage?
Palantir Technologies
Nicholas W. Zamiska serves as Head of Corporate Affairs and Legal Counsel for the Office of the Chief Executive Officer of Palantir Technologies. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Palantir Foundation for Defense Policy and International Affairs. Nicholas Zamiska is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School and co-author (with Alex C. Karp) of The Technological Republic.
Topic: The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Vanderbilt University
Natalie Alkiviadou is a senior researcher at the Future of Free Speech project at Vanderbilt University (USA). Her research interests include free speech, hate speech and the far right. Her forthcoming monograph Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights will be published by Routledge later this year. She is currently a member of the advisory board of the Forum for Humour and the Law (ForHum) and DELIAH: Democratic Literacy and Humour.
Topic: Hate speech/free speech and the European Court of Human Rights
Queen Mary University of London
Eric Heinze is Professor of Law and Humanities at Queen Mary University of London. Heinze is the author of numerous books and over 100 articles, along with frequent media contributions and interviews. He served as Rapporteur General on the Criminalisation of Hate Speech for the Académie internationale de droit compare in 2022 and was project leader of the four-nation EU consortium Memory Laws in European and Comparative Perspectives. He is the author of The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech Is Everything.
Topic: What should “progressive” mean in the 21st century?
University of California, Berkeley
Mahendra Prasad is a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published in AI Magazine, Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He has lectured at the American Political Science Association, EA Global London, Foresight Institute, KCBS, and the Midwest Political Science Association, among others.
Topic: Choice Under Existential Risk and Goal Uncertainty
Institute H21
Karel Janeček is the founder of the Institute H21 and the author of the D21 voting system. He received his PhD in financial mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University. He founded RSJ, which has become the largest market maker in derivatives exchanges. He has worked as a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and lectured at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University. For him, freedom is at the top of human values, and he is currently primarily concerned with protecting freedom of expression against efforts to restrict it. He is also the founder of the Nadační fond pomoci and the Znesnáze21 platform, the Janeček Foundation, Nadační fond Neuron and the Archa 21 project.
Topic: From Polarization to Moderation: Voting by Consensus with D21
Institute for Law & AI
Moritz von Knebel works at the intersection of technology and geopolitics. Moritz was selected as a Mercator Fellow on International Affairs and has worked with a number of philanthropic foundations, think tanks and research institutes in the US, UK, Taiwan and Europe. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at conferences in Stanford, Berlin, Singapore, Riyadh and Brussels. His research focuses on the relevance of new technologies for foreign policy, international relations and democracy.
Topic: Tearing at the seams - automation and the decline of democracy
Tallinn University
Peeter Selg is Professor of Governance and Political Analysis at the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University. His research interests include relational sociology, political semiotics, perverse problems, political theory, and theories of power and democracy. His recent monographs include A Relational Approach to Governing Wicked Problems: From Governance Failure to Governance Failure. He is the editor (with Nick Crossley) of the Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology book series.
Topic: A Clumsy Notion of Democracy: Governing Wicked Problems of the 21st Century
Lectures of foreign experts will be held in thematic blocks. Simultaneous interpretation into Czech is provided. The detailed programme will be specified in the week of the event. Follow the Facebook event for the symposium here.
Registration
Opening word
Eric Heinze: What should “progressive” mean in the 21st century?
Peeter Selg: A Clumsy Notion of Democracy: Governing Wicked Problems of the 21st Century
Coffee break
Mahendra Prasad: Choice Under Existential Risk and Goal Uncertainty
Karel Janeček: From Polarization to Moderation: Voting by Consensus with D21
Lunch break
Nicholas W. Zamiska: The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West
Moritz von Knebel: Tearing at the seams - automation and the decline of democracy
Coffee break
Natalie Alkiviadou: Hate speech/free speech and the European Court of Human Rights
Jonathan Turley: The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage?
Final word
Afterparty
Democracy in the 21stCentury Symposium: Freedom and Innovation in the Technological Age will take place in the Pražská křižovatka. The entrance to the building is located at Zlatá 211. Tickets now available at GoOut.cz.
Buy ticketsPražská křižovatka,
Zlatá 211, 110 00
Staré Město, Praha 1
Friday September 12th 2025
Registration at 08:48 a.m.
Take a look at the past symposium aftermovie.
We study electoral systems, the development of the D21 – Janeček Method, and issues of democracy.
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