Free Cities Conference 2026

Keynote

Why Free Cities Are the Future

Government as a service, permissionless innovation and human-centred design: the case for the cities of the future, and why building them takes decades rather than years.

SpeakerTitus GebelFree Cities Foundation

Topics Free Cities

Free Private Cities

Building a City From Scratch: What We’ve Learned So Far

A decade of building Próspera: the MAYA principle, political legitimacy and legal protection, what went right and what did not, and the next step at St. John’s Bay.

SpeakerErick BrimenPróspera

ProjectPróspera · Special Jurisdiction

Topic

Honduran ZEDEs

Floating Cities Could Be Legal Sooner Than You Think

Floating businesses already moving between jurisdictions in the Philippines, maritime law as a framework, and how single platforms could grow into towns at sea.

SpeakerJoe QuirkSeasteading Author & Advocate

ProjectArkPad · Seastead

Topic

Seasteading

More sessions will be released soon.

The printed programme

The programme handed out on site, exactly as it was printed: every session, every stage and every evening across the four days. Open the preview to read it, or take the file with you.

Download the programme

PDF, 2 pages

The week around the hall

The days before the conference opened were set aside for what the main hall could not offer. Everything here was optional and booked separately from the conference ticket, and most of it was free.

• Próspera site tours, Beta District

  1 and 3 September · Free

  A guided walk through the Beta District with the Próspera team: what had been built, how the jurisdiction works day to day, and questions put directly to the residents and entrepreneurs living there. The Tuesday tour included a governance workshop; the Thursday repeat came with the real estate masterplan.

• Snorkeling at Pigeon Cay

  2 September · 27 places

  Eight hours on the second largest barrier reef in the world, in three boats that stayed together, with the chance to swim among nurse sharks. Lunch was at the Wagundan Restaurant in Punta Gorda, the oldest Garifuna settlement in Central America, with Garifuna music and dancing.

• Ciudad Morazán excursion

  2 September · Mainland Honduras

  A day at the other Free City in this story. A site tour, the community barbecue, and the quarterly town hall, where residents decide things in the open. The part that is genuinely hard to see anywhere else.

• Free Cities Golf Cup

  3 September · Black Pearl, Pristine Bay · 36 places

  A nine hole, four person scramble on the Black Pearl championship course, hosted by Tomek K and Próspera, with teams drawn at a sunset reception the evening before. Mixed skill levels by design: a networking event that happened to involve golf.

• Longevity mornings and sunrise yoga

  3 and 4 September · Pristine Bay

  Yoga, barre, pilates and cold plunges on the beach, alongside an introduction to the longevity and wellness products being built by founders in Próspera, presented by the founders themselves.

• Beach volleyball

  1 and 3 September · Las Verandas Beach · Free

  Mixed teams, no brackets, no prizes, nothing to sign up for. Turn up, get put on a team, play until it stops being fun.

• Welcome drinks and registration

  3 September · Las Palapas, Pristine Bay

  Badges, the first drink and the first introductions at Pristine Bay. Where the conference actually began.

• VIP dinner and Lou Perez

  4 September · The Beach Club

  A three course dinner in the Pristine Bay Beach Club, with Mark Edge as MC and a stand-up set from Lou Perez. Attendees were encouraged to dress for it.

• Latin Future party night

  5 September · The Beach Club

  The Saturday night party, open to every ticket tier, running until midnight.

• Sunday at the Bitcoin Center

  6 September · Pristine Bay

  The decentralized day: a pool party at the Beach Club, an open Bitcoin panel with Dušan Matuška and Tomek K, a guided tour of the Bitcoin Center with its founder, and a sunset barbecue to close the week.

Infinita Startup Week

Infinita is the biotech district being built inside Próspera. Its startup week ran from 31 August to 7 September and folded the conference into the middle of it, so anyone who arrived early spent the first half of the week building rather than listening.

• Orientation and community welcome

  Monday 31 August

  Arrivals, a makerspace dinner and the first introductions across the cohort.

• Regulatory Innovation Day

  Tuesday 1 September

  Workshops on how founders actually use Próspera’s regulatory framework to launch, test and scale, ending in a founders’ guide to regulatory hacking and a group dinner.

• Startup Builder Day

  Wednesday 2 September

  Roundtables and firesides on product, growth and fundraising, with mentorship aimed at getting ideas into a shape that could be presented on the Sunday.

• Ecosystem Exploration Day

  Thursday 3 September

  Behind the scenes tours of the clinics, the robotics factory and the real estate developments: the parts of the ecosystem that are not visible from the conference site.

• Investor Demo Day

  Sunday 6 September · Infinita Dome

  The week’s closing session, hosted by Niklas Anzinger and Lise Amber: founders pitching to investors in the same dome that had carried the conference two days earlier.