The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced it will host an academic conference dedicated to bitcoin digital currency on 5-6 March.

The conference entirely organised by the student community will be held on the University campus and attended by selected speakers, none of whom, however influential, will get payment for their presentations. Neither will it be possible to buy oneself the way in:

“There is no cost to become a speaker. This is something I am very firm on; no amount of money can buy you a position as a speaker. We ask speakers to come pro bono, which creates an interesting meld of established companies and fledgling startups,” said Nchinda, an IT student and the president of the student Bitcoin Club, in an interview to Bitcoin Magazine.

As of 26 February, the list of speakers includes representatives of R3, Nasdaq, Digital Asset Holdings, as well as independent developers and researchers, Princeton's Arvind Narayanan, the author of the first bitcoin textbook, among them.

The attendees will need to pay for their tickets, which will be later refunded in bitcoins.

The topics covered by the programme range from technical aspects of the relationship between bitcoin and the internet, including internet governance, to the scaling debate and the role of bitcoin in the future of finance.

MIT Bitcoin Club is said to be one of the most active participants of the Blockchain Education Network, and sees itself as a forum where “ideas, projects, programs, events, and businesses” related to bitcoin “can be studied, discussed and developed.”