Washington, DC and Aspen, CO, May 01, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Aspen Ideas Festival today announced the first group of speakers among more than 300 thinkers and leaders who will participate in the 15th annual festival this June in Colorado. Speakers and attendees will engage with many of the most pressing challenges facing our world today, including the breakdown of the international political status quo, climate change, and growing social and economic divides in the U.S. And as in previous years, speakers will also explore timeless questions around art, science, and philosophy.
This year’s Festival will run from June 23-29, 2019, preceded by Aspen Ideas: Health from June 20-23, 2019. The Festival is presented by the Aspen Institute and co-hosted by The Atlantic.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A limited number of press passes are available. To apply, please fill out the form here: http://www.aspenideas.org/festival/press. The Festival can accommodate both print and broadcast media; and Festival staff can assist in facilitating interviews on-site.
The Aspen Ideas Festival is an experience for the curious: bringing together the people leading their industries for in-depth and often intimate conversations about today’s most critical issues. The Festival’s ten tracks will dive into such areas as division and renewal in America, the future of conservatism, the next world order, solutions for climate change, innovation in design, the art of storytelling, the limits of human performance, and understanding emotion.
Speakers will continue to be added in the coming weeks. A complete list is available at https://www.aspenideas.org/speakers?view=list. Among the featured speakers are:
- Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Jon Batiste, Artistic Director at Large, Pianist, and Bandleader, National Jazz Museum in Harlem
- Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran minister and public theologian; Author, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation
- Raj Chetty, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
- Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey
- Common, Musician
- Bob Corker, Former Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee; Former US Senator, Tennessee (R)
- Mary Daly, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
- Nigel Kim Darroch, British Ambassador to the United States
- Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO, BlackRock
- Vicente Fox, Former President of Mexico
- Masha Gessen, American-Russian Journalist
- Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist, International Monetary Fund
- Fatima Goss Graves, President & CEO, National Women's Law Center
- Lori Gottlieb, Psychotherapist; Contributing Editor, The Atlantic; Author, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
- Heidi Heitkamp, Former US Senator, North Dakota (D)
- John Hoke, Chief Design Officer, Nike
- Alex Honnold, Professional Rock Climber; Author, Alone on the Wall
- Walter Isaacson, Professor, Tulane University
- Jeh Johnson, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
- Kevin Love, Player, Cleveland Cavaliers
- Dennis Muilenburg, Chairman, President & CEO, The Boeing Company
- Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines
- Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist.org
- Rob Reich, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
- Paul Romer, 2018 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics
- Karl Rove, Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor, George W. Bush White House
- Matt Ryan, Quarterback and Team Captain, Atlanta Falcons
- Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology and Director, Comparative Cognition Laboratory, Yale University
- Dani Shapiro, Author, Inheritance
- Ed Stack, CEO, Dick’s Sporting Goods
- Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation
- Tara Westover, Author, Educated
Joining headline speakers and participating in the Festival will be hundreds of scholars from all over the United States and around the world, selected for their work, accomplishments, and ability to transform ideas into action.
The Festival, which will feature one-on-one interviews, panel conversations, film screenings, and more, is a seven-day event. More about this year’s program can be found at http://www.aspenideas.org.
Over the course of the Ideas Festival, a robust and diverse audience is expected in Aspen, CO, and many more will be able to join the conversation online. The Atlantic will report on the Ideas Festival in a special report at TheAtlantic.com. All video and audio clips of on-stage conversations will be on aspenideas.org, which has been redesigned for 2019, on TheAtlantic.com/live, and on the Aspen Institute’s YouTube channel. Regular updates from the Festival, in the run-up and during the event, will be on Facebook.com/aspenideas and on Twitter at @AspenIdeas, @TheAtlantic and @AtlanticLive, and with #AspenIdeas. Additionally, discussions can be followed all year on the Aspen Ideas Festival articles page and on the Aspen Ideas To Go podcast.
Presenting underwriters for 2019 Aspen Ideas Festival are Allstate, Audi, Comcast NBCUniversal, ExxonMobil, General Mills, McKinsey & Company, Mount Sinai Health System, Nestlé Waters North America, PayPal, Prudential Financial, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Sotheby’s, Southern Company, and the Walton Family Foundation. Supporting underwriters are Grow with Google, Microsoft, Standard Industries, and The Paul E. Singer Foundation. Facebook, PBS, and the Skoll Foundation are contributing underwriters.
About the Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.
About The Atlantic
Founded in 1857 and today one of the fastest growing media platforms in the industry, The Atlantic has throughout its history championed the power of big ideas and continues to shape global debate across print, digital, events, and video platforms. With its award-winning digital presence TheAtlantic.com and CityLab.com on cities around the world, The Atlantic is a multimedia forum on the most critical issues of our times—from politics, business, urban affairs, and the economy, to technology, arts, and culture. Bob Cohn is President of The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg is Editor in Chief. Emerson Collective is majority owner; Atlantic Media is the minority operating owner of The Atlantic.
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