2024 Resnick Aspen Action Forum
2024 Resnick Aspen Action Forum
Only Light Can Do That
The Resnick Aspen Action Forum is an opportunity for more than 400 changemakers to gather, take pause, and bring into focus the leadership required to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges. Under the theme Only Light Can Do That, Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) Fellows, young leaders, and other values-driven leaders will come together in Aspen, CO to ask the most urgent questions of our time in the pursuit of shaping a better future.
We find ourselves in a season of discord, and the forces of polarization work tirelessly to pull us further away from one another. And yet, we are a part of a long lineage of leaders who fought for fellowship through strife. It is our turn to find a third way forward. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us: darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
How might we muster the resilience to sit with one another through the pain and the heartbreak of our differing views? How can we honor our hurt – and our rage – as we work to find common ground? How can we bravely take the first steps through the dark, though we may not know the way?
Reflect on these questions and hear from leaders on the frontlines of change through mainstage livestreams taking place July 23 – 25. Explore the schedule and talks below.
#AspenAction
Opening Session: Finding Light
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 – 12:30 – 1:45 PM MT
In a world teetering on the edge of progress and peril, we find ourselves at a crossroads, burdened by a multitude of concerns. Personal dilemmas intertwine with social divides, national conflicts simmer beneath the surface, technological change is rapidly growing and political uncertainties are ever present. Each day brings new challenges, testing our resolve and pushing us to the brink of isolation and exhaustion. Yet, amidst this turmoil, there emerges a burning need to reconnect with our shared humanity—a beacon of hope in the face of darkness.
Step into the heart of our world’s turbulence, where past struggles echo in today’s headlines and find inspiration in leaders who have confronted seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Rabbi Sharon Brous, Founder and Senior Rabbi of IKAR and Imam Abdullah Antepli, scholar of cross-religious and cross-cultural dialogue in American higher education and founder and co-director of the Muslim Leadership Initiative, both bear witness to the complexities of conflict in the Middle East. Their voices, though shaped by different traditions, resonate with a shared yearning for understanding and re-kindling of common humanity. Dar Vanderbeck, Vice President of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, will open the Forum with a community welcome. Together, they’ll invite us to imagine possibilities for a brighter future.
Courage, Vision, Impact: The 2024 John P. McNulty Prize
In Partnership with the McNulty Foundation
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 – 6:00 – 7:00 PM MT
- In our relentless pursuit of the possible, the journey toward social impact can be slow, unkind, and personally demanding. It takes bold leadership and courage to sustain us. Hear the bold visions of the 2024 McNulty Prize Winners, four social impact pioneers who are leading breakthrough efforts alongside frontline communities:
- Gloria Walton (Civil Society Fellow), President and CEO of The Solutions Project
- Saket Soni (Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program Job Quality Fellow), founder of Resilience Force
- Nedgine Paul Deroly and Jean-Claude Brizard (Pahara Fellow) leading Anseye Pou Ayiti
Whether by building and sustaining a network of environmental justice champions, training a new workforce to enable recovery from disaster, or revolutionizing education and civic leadership for transformation in Haiti, these efforts are pioneering ways for communities to come together to tackle critical issues.
As we stand on the brink of significant anniversaries marking the end of South Africa’s Apartheid and the Rwandan Genocide, Dele Olojede (Africa-Leadership Initiative – South Africa Fellow), 2011 McNulty Prize Winner, will share a keynote reflection, illuminating the power of leadership and courage in overcoming even the most formidable obstacles. His profound insights and experiences are not just words; they are the testament to his Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism, which has shed light on some of humanity’s darkest hours – the Rwandan genocide.
The Darkness, the Light, and the Other
Wednesday, July 24, 2024 – 1:45 – 3:00 PM MT
The phenomenon of ‘Othering’—the process by which we cast certain identities or ideas as fundamentally different or alien—shapes our interactions and can divide communities. What are the invisible walls ‘Othering’ erects between us?
Geena Rocero, Founder of Street Pageant Productions, and trans rights advocate has felt these walls personally. In conversation with Stephen DeBerry, Founder and Managing Partner of the Bronze Venture Fund and Henry Crown Fellow, she’ll share her powerful journey in knocking down these walls and find belonging—for herself and her community.
Bayo Akomolafe, Posthumanist Thinker, Speaker, and Author, will take us even deeper, inviting us to venture into the ‘cracks’—the unexplored darkness where we may discover transformative solutions for a more whole world. Are we ready to go in to get out?
Closing Conversations: Crossing Fault Lines for Transformational Change
Thursday, July 25, 2024 – 4:00 – 5:00 PM MT
In a world grappling with the challenges of radicalization, polarization, climate change, pandemics, and mass migration, the need for massive collaboration has never been more urgent. Yet, how do we navigate the complexities of working alongside those with whom we profoundly disagree?
Enter Van Jones, Founder of Dream Machine Innovation Lab, and Ashley Bell (Civil Society Fellow), Founder and CEO of Ready Finance. Both are not just leaders in their fields but champions of collaboration across deep divides. Jones has a rare track record of bringing people together to do hard things — in areas as diverse as clean energy solutions, criminal justice reform, and racial inclusion in the tech sector. Bell led critical initiatives to get capital in the hands of Black business owners as Regional Administrator for the US Small Business Administration (SBA) in the Trump Administration during the roll out of the Paycheck Protection Program during COVID-19. Their stories are a testament to the power of empathy, understanding, and the human capacity to rise above our differences to create positive change.
