Presentation: Adam Thierer on the future of technology and the case for the freedom to innovate

ISEG worked to bring Adam Thierer, author and Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, to present to the Wichita Pachyderm Club. On April 23, 2021, Thierer spoke to the group about the future of technology and the case for the freedom to innovate.

Adam Thierer is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He specializes in innovation, entrepreneurialism, Internet and free-speech issues, with a particular focus on the public policy concerns surrounding emerging technologies.

Thierer has authored and edited several books, including his foundational book on the freedom to innovate, “Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom.” In his latest book, “Evasive Entrepreneurs and the Future of Governance: How Innovation Improves Economies and Governments,” Thierer makes the case that we should accept — and often even embrace — a certain amount of disruptive entrepreneurship that fosters innovation, drives economic growth, and makes government accountable to the governed. He examines how “evasive entrepreneurs” — innovators who don’t always conform to social or legal norms — are changing the world and challenging the status quo of governance, culture and the way we earn a living.

Thierer has been president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He received his master’s degree in international business management and trade theory at the University of Maryland, and his bachelor’s in journalism and political philosophy from Indiana University.

You can watch a recording of the presentation below: