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In America, millions of people struggle with mental health including depression, anxiety, and more — all further exacerbated by living through a pandemic. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that one in five adults experience mental illness each year, but despite how common it is, mental health is still surrounded by stigma and shame. Our experts are candid abo...
From blockchain to back to school and virus-hunting to bridging divides, speakers at the 2021 Aspen Ideas Festival addressed issues in a new kind of world—one touched, and changed, by the pandemic. Our speakers looked to the future and discussed the biggest, boldest ideas. Here's a sampling of the some of the Festival's conversations.

Aspen Ideas to Go is a show about big ideas that will open your mind. Featuring compelling conversations with the world’s top thinkers and doers from a diverse range of disciplines, Aspen Ideas to Go gives you front-row access to the Aspen Ideas Festival and other events presented by the Aspen Institute. Here's a sampling of some of our favorite episodes!

Music and dance are humanity’s hallmarks, a shared ritual of communities the world over. Over the millennia, we’ve created some highly specialized forms, but at its root, music is a language of emotion and empowerment, longing and loss — though it can also be a subversive force against authority.









COVID-19 has hindered progress in gender equity as women have left the workforce to care for children. But 2020 also held record high numbers of women running for office & holding executive positions in Fortune 500 companies. So while progress is being made in one realm, deeply-ingrained societal gender roles are roaring back to life. From politics to tech to health, learn...




Two weeks before the first woman of color became Vice President, an angry mob that included members of the white supremacist group Proud Boys, stormed the US Capitol. As Ibram X. Kendi puts it, “we’re engaged in this struggle between two forces: racial progress and racist process.” Watch recent conversations that offer ways to recognize, reckon with and repair societal rac...

The unflinching humanity that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied is part of what makes his legacy so lasting. In addition to his preeminent civil rights work, he spoke out about worker protections, access to housing, and warmongering. Watch and listen as Aspen Ideas speakers, some who worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., explain how he indelibly shaped the world.



On November 9, 2020, as coronavirus cases surge, President-elect Joe Biden named a COVID-19 Advisory Council. Aspen Ideas has been honored to host several of the council members over the years. While only a few of the talks listed here are about the pandemic, each gives a window into the speakers and their expertise in public health. Congratulations to Ezekiel Emanuel, Atu...
