OSI advanced its mission—and your values—beautifully in 2023. Here are some highlights of our projects and programs throughout the year.
Courses
OSI taught 12 in-depth courses to 238 students. These included:
- How to Write Powerfully in Defense of Liberty (with Jon Hersey and Thomas Walker-Werth)
- Ayn Rand Integrations: Cicero, Paine, Bastiat, Maslow (with various instructors)
- Atlas Shrugged Reading Group (with Angel Walker-Werth)
- Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Reading Group (with Craig Biddle)
- Conceptual Clarity and Fallacies that Wreck It (with Craig Biddle)
- The Ominous Parallels Reading Group (with Thomas Walker-Werth)
- How to Get More Out of Movies (with Andrew Bernstein)
- How to “Read” and Enjoy Paintings: Drama in 19th Century Paintings (with Luc Travers)
- Ayn Rand Integrations: Hamilton, Smith, Roddenbery, Epictetus (with various instructors)
- We the Living Reading Group (with Andrew Bernstein and Duncan Scott)
- Your Supersystem for Flourishing (with Craig Biddle)
OSI’s Internship Program
Our Internship Program, launched in October 2022, accepts twelve interns annually. Each intern is paired with an OSI fellow and trained intensively for three months in philosophy, Objectivism, writing and public speaking. After completing their internships, these budding intellectuals are supported intellectually and logistically via OSI’s Home Base program, which enables and encourages them to remain engaged with our fellows and instructors, to participate in our weekly philosophy discussions, to get helpful feedback and editing on their work, and generally to get assistance from OSI while launching or building their careers.
Graduates of this program include:
- Ely Lassman (now the quality control manager at Prometheus Foundation)
- Kiyah Willis (now a fellow at OSI)
- Maddox Locher (now the content manager and editor of The Future Today at OSI)
- Seamus Riley (an architect and now a writer for The Objective Standard journal)
- Justyna Piątek-Pawłowska (now the social media manager at OSI)
- Aleksandra Jelesijevic (now the project and event manager at Ayn Rand Center Europe)
- Anna Tymoshenko (now the CEO of Ukrainian Students for Freedom)
We are extremely proud of OSI’s interns and the progress they are making in their intellectual work. They are advancing rational philosophy across the globe. And that is the fundamental means to a future of freedom and flourishing.
OSI’s Conferences and Outside Conferences
In 2023, OSI rebranded its summer conference from “TOS-Con” to “LevelUp.” Held in Phoenix, Arizona, LevelUp 2023 was our largest event to date, with a total of 614 attendees, including speakers and staff.
The program and speakers included:
- Intentionality: The Source and Power of Purpose (Craig Biddle)
- Atomic Strategy: Why and How to Get 1% Better Every Day (James Clear)
- Free Speech, Censorship, and Life-or-Death Distinctions (Eric Daniels)
- Individualism in a Time of Tribalism (OSI panelists: Angelica Walker-Werth, Ely Lassman, Kiyah Willis, Jackson Upmann, and Craig Biddle)
- Rebel Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright (Timothy Sandefur)
- Integrity: Who Needs It (Martin Hooss)
- Foods for Flourishing: The Science as It Stands (Max Lugavere)
- The New Intellectuals America Needs (Bari Weiss and Craig Biddle)
- A Future of Flourishing and How to Achieve It (Bari Weiss, Timothy Sandefur, Eric Daniels, and Craig Biddle)
- Classical Music without the Pretense and Poop (Arianna Warsaw-Fan Rauch)
- The Education Cancer and Its Cure (Andrew Bernstein)
- Fitness for Flourishing (John Little)
- How I Stood Up for Reason against Illiberalism—and You Can Too (Sahar Tartak)
- On Choosing a Philosophy for Loving Life (Craig Biddle)
Evening activities and nightlife at LevelUp included karaoke, board and card games, a swing dance lesson, a musical jam session (with various speakers and attendees), late-night conversations, and the forging of friendships for life.
Here’s an indication of what attendees said about the event:
“I have no words to describe how amazing the conference was. I’ve returned to Brazil bright-eyed to live the best life I can.” —Julia
“I’ve attended every conference OSI has put on, and I’ve consistently found that I get more out of these few days each year than I do in any other gathering. This gives me fuel and inspiration that lasts all year long.” —Kira
“This conference was one of the best things in my life.” —Mariana
“I cannot express how elated I am having attended this life-changing conference. The people I met, the ideas we discussed, and the time I had—it was beyond amazing. . . . this past week has only left me hungry for more.” —Pavit
“TOS-Con 2022 was one of the best experiences of my life. LevelUp [2023] was a way to relive that experience. But it was even better.” —Everaldo
“That was the most badass conference of the year.” —Sebastian
You can watch a sizzle reel of the conference here.
In addition to LevelUp 2023, OSI held an Innovation Celebration conference in Milton Keynes, England, in March 2023. This was a one-day event, with 42 attendees, in which Jon Hersey spoke on “The Operating System of Progress”; Angel Walker-Werth spoke on “Transforming Genes for Flourishing”; and Thomas Walker-Werth spoke on “Freedom in the Final Frontier.” The event was a huge success, and we plan to expand OSI’s conferences in Europe in the coming years.
OSI intellectuals also spoke at 43 outside (non-OSI) conferences and events around the world, where they engaged in a total of 53 talks, panel discussions, and debates. Some were live and some virtual, and together they involved more than 4,600 attendees.
These events included:
- Liberty Forum, in New York City (Nov 15–16)
- Battle of Ideas, in Westminster, UK (Oct 28–29)
- Ladies of Liberty Alliance Leadership Retreat, in Washington DC (Oct 14–15)
- John Galt School events throughout Europe (various dates)
- Liberty International World Conference, in Madrid, Spain (Aug 16–19)
- Prometheus Fellowship Summit, in Vienna, Austria (July 11–14)
- Free Market Road Show events throughout Europe (various dates)
- Liberty Forum, in Prague, Czech Republic (May 25–26)
- New Intellectual’s Conference, in Belgrade, Serbia (Apr 11–14)
OSI intellectuals’ talks at these events included:
- The Foundations of Freedom and Flourishing (with Craig Biddle)
- Introduction to Objectivism (with Jon Hersey, Thomas Walker-Werth, and Angel Walker-Werth)
- Introduction to the Objectivist Ethics (with Thomas Walker-Werth and Angel Walker-Werth)
- How to Make the Moral Case For Liberty (with Craig Biddle)
- Logic and Love: The Harmony of Happiness (with Craig Biddle, Thomas Walker-Werth, and Angel Walker-Werth)
- Objectivism and Relationships (with Thomas Walker-Werth and Angel Walker-Werth)
- Rights: From Cicero to Rand (with Thomas Walker-Werth and Angel Walker-Werth)
- The Objectivist Metaphysics (with Angel Walker-Werth)
- The Objectivist Politics (with Angel Walker-Werth)
- Epistemology: Who Needs It (with Angel Walker-Werth)
Booklets Distributed
OSI distributed more than 2,300 booklets to young adults at various events in 2023.
These included:
- Secular, Objective Morality: Look and See
- Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice
- Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism
- Purpose, Value Hierarchies, and Happiness
- Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society
- Libertarianism vs. Radical Capitalism
- Purpose Comes from Reason, Not Religion
- Ayn Rand: America’s Comeback Philosopher
- What Is Objectivism?
- The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time
- Education in a Free Society
- Heroes and Villains in American Education
- The Roots of Capitalism and Statism in the West
- Capitalism and the Moral High Ground
- A Woke New World
- Israel: To Be, or Not to Be
- Reason vs. Mysticism: Truth and Consequences
- Heroes and Villains in Western Philosophy
- The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists
- Reclaiming Spirituality for Lovers of Life
- Economics in Atlas Shrugged
- The Is-Altruism Dichotomy
- Liberty: What Is It? Why Is It Good? On What Does It Depend?
Our Team
OSI’s team includes:
Sarah Biddle, President and Treasurer
Craig Biddle, Executive Director
Robert Begley, Director of Development
Jackson Upmann, Director of Marketing
Dylan Fritts, Design and Media Specialist
Angelica Walker-Werth, Fellow and Programs Manager
Jon Hersey, Fellow and Instructor
Thomas Walker-Werth, Fellow and Instructor
Kiyah Willis, Fellow and Social Media Personality
Justyna Piątek-Pawłowska, Social Media Manager
Board of Directors
OSI’s Board of Directors includes:
Sarah Biddle, who is both President of Objective Standard Institute and General Manager of The Objective Standard (our sister journal)
Craig Biddle, who is Executive Director of Objective Standard Institute, Editor in Chief of The Objective Standard, and Executive Director of Prometheus Foundation
Robert Begley, who is Director of Development at Objective Standard Institute
Annie Vinther-Sanz, who is Director of Operations at Prometheus Foundation
Pete Masterson, who is a retired businessman and independent investor
Objective Standard Institute is the only organization dedicated to teaching the rising generation about the importance of philosophy, the principles of Objectivism, and related ideas for living fully and advancing liberty.
We love what we do, and we do it well.
If you appreciate OSI’s mission, please support our work with a tax-deductible contribution.
If you have any questions about OSI or how you can help, I’d love to speak with you. Email me at [email protected], and let’s schedule a call.
Craig Biddle
Executive Director
