Beneath a gilded sixty-foot ceiling and a colonnade of stone, the Mellon Auditorium has staged the great occasions of the American century — among them the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. For one night, it is ours.

When the first day of Freedom Tech DC closes, the conversation moves up Constitution Avenue. Cocktails under the columns, dinner beneath the coffers, and toasts with the people writing the next chapter of American freedom technology.