Aspen Ideas Festival
[Aspen, CO] Someday, we would like to attend the Aspen Ideas Festival.
We yearn to mingle and converse with, as its website boasts, “some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, businesspeople, teachers, and other leaders — all gathered in a single place.”
Our desire is more inspired than our wallet, however. Perhaps this absence of egalitarianism is unconsciously inspiring the festival 2023 themes of democracy.
There’s irony for you.
Every year, more than 300 leaders bring their big ideas to the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Attenders have opportunities to interact with public officials, artists, scientists, authors, business executives, scholars, economists, foreign policy specialists, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all kinds — on footpaths and sidewalks, over lunch on the lawn or coffee at the espresso bar.
The 2023 speaker lineup includes:
- Ryan Gellert – Chief Executive Officer, Patagonia
- John Mather – Senior Astrophysicist and Goddard Fellow; Senior Project Scientist, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA
- Imani Perry – Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University
- Javier Zamora – Author and poet
- Krista Tippett – Founder, The On Being Project; Podcast Creator and Host, “On Being”
- Doug Ducey – Former Governor, State of Arizona
- Wendy Suzuki – Seryl Kushner Dean, College of Arts and Science; professor, neural science and psychology, New York University
- Rainn Wilson – Actor
- James Ijames – Playwright, Director, Professor and Co-Artistic Director of Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater
Evenings can include a live music performance, a media roundtable, or a one-on-one interview “with a leader you admire.”
The Aspen Ideas Festival is really two festivals, or two weeks of festival, from Jun 24 – Jun 30, 2023. Each week has a $5,000 registration.
And we wonder why democracy is in jeopardy in the United States and why great discussion and ideas are derided as the bastion of “elites.”
AIF LINKS