OSLO FREEDOM FORUM
LOCATION: OSLO
FOUNDER: THOR HALVORSSEN
INCEPTION: 2009
ABOUT OSLO FREEDOM FORUM
The Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) is a transformative annual conference where the world’s most engaging human rights advocates, artists, journalists, technologists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, academics, and world leaders meet to share their stories and brainstorm ways to expand freedom and unleash human potential across the globe.
With the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as a source of inspiration, the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) was established in 2009 by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) to give a platform to remarkable dissidents who are courageously confronting authoritarianism. At OFF, business leaders, technologists, journalists, policymakers, and philanthropists meet with the freedom champions around the world, and help them by providing new support, tools, and attention.
The Economist calls OFF the “Davos for human rights,” and The New York Times says it is the place where “the world’s dissidents have their say.” However, OFF is more than a platform for inspiring talks; what makes the event truly exceptional, is the community that expands every year through the partnerships and collaborations that are sparked at the event. Each speaker and participant brings valuable insights and experiences, and the ideas generated during the Forum truly have the power to change the world.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Thor Halvorssen is a human rights advocate and film producer. He began advocating for human rights as a teenager in London by organizing opposition to South African apartheid. Described by the New York Times as a “champion of the underdog and the powerless,” he is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an organization devoted to liberating political prisoners and to challenging dictatorships. He is founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual global gathering described by The Economist as a “human-rights equivalent of the Davos economic forum.” In 2020 Thor produced the critically acclaimed documentary “The Dissident,” about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Thor personally understands the importance of protecting human rights. When Thor was 19 his father, a diplomat with the rank of ambassador, was falsely imprisoned, tortured, and savagely beaten in a Venezuelan jail. In August of 2004, Thor’s mother, a child psychologist, was brutally gunned down and wounded by members of the Venezuelan government security apparatus while attending a peaceful public gathering. And in February of 2014, Thor’s first cousin, Leopoldo Lopez, a Venezuelan politician, became a political prisoner of the government of Nicolas Maduro.
Thor has lectured at universities across the world on matters of liberty and his opinions and views have appeared in numerous venues including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, TIME, the Daily Telegraph, New York Post, and GQ, as well as television outlets such as Al-Jazeera, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC, HBO, and many others. Thor graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with concurrent undergraduate and graduate degrees in Political Science and History.