On October 1–2, 2025, Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt and leaders from the Project Liberty Institute (PLI) joined Norrsken Impact Week, which gathered over 1,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and changemakers in Barcelona, Spain. Encompassed by Project Liberty, PLI is an independent 501(c)(3) organization with an international partner network that includes Georgetown University, Stanford University, ETH Zurich, and other leading academic institutions and civic organizations. The Institute’s work focuses on advancing a better AI and data economy that gives people more voice, choice, and stake in the internet by engaging the whole stack of LPs, VCs, entrepreneurs, infrastructure, policymakers, academia, and the general public.
AI has entered the main stage of global markets, with trillions of dollars flowing into the technologies, companies, and infrastructures that shape this new era. The real opportunity of this pivotal moment lies in enabling entrepreneurs and investors to build scalable businesses by creating a human-centered digital future and tapping into tomorrow’s growth markets.
Norrsken, founded by the co-founder of Klarna, Niklas Adalberth, has become one of the world’s leading ecosystems for impact entrepreneurship, with houses in Stockholm, Kigali, Brussels, and Barcelona. Impact Week is Norrsken’s flagship gathering, convening hundreds of entrepreneurs and investors working on solutions to global challenges.
“Our mission at PLI is to reclaim humanity in the digital era. We convene and catalyze stakeholders across the full stack of the ecosystem. From limited partners and venture firms to entrepreneurs, infrastructure builders, policymakers, and academia – we are always putting people at the center. We aim to rewire the incentives and infrastructure of the digital economy so that AI and data become tools for empowerment and agency,” said Sheila Warren, CEO of Project Liberty Institute.
How to Build the People’s Internet in the Age of AI
The week opened with a main stage conversation between McCourt and Johan Attby, General Partner at Norrsken’s Evolve accelerator. McCourt discussed the need to catalyze impact entrepreneurship for a digital economy that restores human agency and rewires the incentives of the current internet. He emphasized that today’s digital infrastructure was never designed to serve people–it was designed to extract and centralize value. To build a more inclusive and trustworthy AI future, McCourt argued, society must rebuild its foundational infrastructure to ensure technology advances the public good. He highlighted Project Liberty’s efforts to advance open, interoperable systems and next-generation infrastructure, enabling entrepreneurs and investors to design a more human-centered digital future.
Impact Investment in a Better AI Economy
On the second day of the summit, PLI and ImpactVC co-hosted a side event on impact investment in the AI economy, which brought together over 60 LPs, VCs, and family offices. The discussion explored how the investment community can adapt due diligence and impact frameworks for the age of AI, applying a dual lens: investing in the vertical itself by backing infrastructure, protocols, assurance technologies, and applications that will underpin the AI and data economy, and investing in AI as a catalyst across sectors such as health, social media, climate or finance.
“AI and data are no longer side topics. They are becoming the very infrastructure of markets. For investors, the challenge is twofold: knowing what ‘good AI’ looks like, and backing the entrepreneurs and builders who can deliver it. Those who get this right won’t just capture returns in the next growth cycle, they will help set the standards and incentives for an entire ecosystem,” said Paul Fehlinger, Director of Policy, Governance Innovation & Impact at Project Liberty Institute.
Additional speakers included Rumman Chowdhury, CEO and Co-Founder of Humane Intelligence, as well as Jahed Momand, General Partner at Cerulean Ventures.
The discussion builds on the joint VC initiative on Responsible and Impactful AI launched by Reframe Venture, ImpactVC, and PLI at SuperVenture 2025 in Berlin, which is developing new guidance and toolkits for VCs. It also complements the global LP process on responsible investment in data and AI, launched in 2024 by Reframe Venture, PLI, and Omidyar Network, which now engages more than $5 trillion in capital.
Workshop on Business Model Innovation for the AI & Data Era
Project Liberty Institute hosted a workshop on Business Model Innovation for the AI and Data Era, expanding upon the recommendations of the PLI Fair Data Economy Task Force, published earlier this year. The session explored how entrepreneurs and investors can design business models that incorporate agency, transparency, and sustainability from the outset, ensuring that growth and responsibility progress in tandem, in contrast to today’s dominant models. In conversation with impact entrepreneurs and investors at Norrsken, PLI’s Director for Policy, Innovation & Impact Paul Fehlinger, Mohamed Nanabhay, Managing Partner of Mozilla Ventures, Douglas Sloan, Co-Founder of ImpactVC and Managing Director at Better Society Capital, and Dama Sathianathan, Partner at Bethnal Green Ventures, explored how to accelerate better business models for a new generation of companies that deliver both growth and agency.
