From June 29 to July 2, Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Germany, attended the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. She traveled to the festival directly from the G7 Summit in Schloss Elmau. At Aspen Ideas, Dr. Mildner had the opportunity to interact with a variety of distinguished speakers, participants, and Aspen colleagues, including Elliot Gerson, EVP of Aspen, and Yuliya Tychkivska, Executive Director of Aspen Kyiv.
Set amid the scenic Rocky Mountains, the Aspen Ideas Festival is known as a premier venue where writers, policymakers, artists, business leaders, and activists come together to think about new solutions to pressing global issues and develop new ideas. This year’s focus areas were: Heat, Power, Connection, Trust, Money, Beauty and Viewpoints. Highlights included an interview with Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy, an event with former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honoring the late Madeleine Albright, and panel discussions on topics such as democratic resilience and climate change.
“The Aspen Ideas Festival was inspiring and energizing, a truly unprecedented forum to generate new ideas and help solve global problems,” Mildner reported. She concluded, “This festival is the embodiment of the Aspen spirit, represented by Walter Paepcke and Shepard Stone – a ‘spirit’ that animates all of our work at Aspen Germany.”
To learn more about the Aspen Ideas Festival, visit https://www.aspenideas.org/
