Thinking
Keynotes and talks on activism, technology, and social change. Past venues include the World Economic Forum, OECD, and Princeton.
Activist • Technologist • Strategist
I co-created Occupy Wall Street, taught activism at Princeton and UCLA, and wrote The End of Protest. Today, as Micah Bornfree, I'm exploring what comes next at the intersection of activism, crypto, and AI.
What I Do
Keynotes and talks on activism, technology, and social change. Past venues include the World Economic Forum, OECD, and Princeton.
Advising organizations navigating the intersection of social activism and AI.
Building OutcryAI.com to explore how activism evolves in the age of artificial intelligence.
Biography
In 2011, I co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global movement that spread to over 80 countries and 1,000 cities. I also conceived the activist debt forgiveness tactic later used by Rolling Jubilee and Undue Medical Debt. That work led to my book, The End of Protest, published in English, German, and Greek.
Along the way I co-founded Activist School, taught at Bard, UCLA, and Princeton, and held fellowships including the Roddenberry Fellowship and Voqal Fellowship. My writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian.
I hold a PhD in Media and Communications from the European Graduate School and a BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College.
Today my focus has shifted to the technologies reshaping collective mobilization. I work as a cryptocurrency advisor, an AI consultant and participate in AI safety programs with OpenAI and Anthropic. I am building OutcryAI to explore how activism evolves in the age of AI.
Selected Talks
Selected talks from conferences, universities, and literary festivals worldwide.
Davos, Switzerland
Paris, France
Roskilde, Denmark
Toronto, Canada
The Hague, Netherlands
Melbourne, Australia
Sydney, Australia
Princeton University
University of Chicago
Bali, Indonesia
New York City, NY
Genoa, Italy
Archive
Selected articles, essays, and interviews from twenty years of writing about activism. My views on many of these topics have evolved, changed and morphed over the years.
Contact
For select speaking engagements, consulting, and media inquiries.
micah@micahbornfree.comActivist Futurism
Latest from my Substack newsletter on activism, technology, and social change.

Outcry is live on Signal. Organizing was never a broadcast problem.
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New Outcry tool: The Campaign Laboratory. The potential for change can be suppressed but never zeroed. Something always jitters beneath the surface, waiting.
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What if your movement could think alongside your members, holding multiple strategic paths open simultaneously, offering real-time tactical counsel drawn from decades of movement history...
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Addressing The Loneliness of the Movement Creator
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How the Constraints‑Led Approach (CLA) from sports science might look if applied to activist training.
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Unleashing the visual creativity of activists worldwide!
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Outcry AI is my provisional answer. It’s an activist AI built to supply the hard tactical and strategic advice that conventional chatbots refuse to touch.
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Developing a Activist AI for Social Movements
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