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Aspen Institute Launches Technology Leaders Initiative

New two-year Aspen Global Leadership Network program aims to ignite the moral imagination of senior leaders shaping our digital future

Aspen, Colorado – July 25, 2025 — The Aspen Institute today announced the launch of the Technology Leaders Initiative, a new two-year experience designed to cultivate ethical, globally-minded leadership in an era of unprecedented digital transformation. The initiative launches as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) to address the urgent need for leaders who can effectively navigate, and serve the public good through, today’s complex technological landscape.

The program will bring together 20 senior leaders from across the global technology ecosystem—from policy shapers to industry pioneers—for a journey of deep reflection, cross-sector dialogue, and enduring peer connection. 

The initiative addresses three critical challenges: 

  • A leadership gap where most global alliances in frontier technology focus on products and policy but don’t always build the networks necessary to counter distrust and wrestle with critical ethical questions;
  • The emerging concentration of power in new technology landscapes that requires working directly with leaders of today’s most critical platforms to effect change; and
  • The need for global collaboration at a time when the race for dominance threatens to eclipse the potential for cooperation.

Chosen for their capacity for outsized impact, this initiative will challenge a select group of global leaders to think beyond innovation and to explore the implications of power, responsibility, and the future they are building. These leaders will grapple with what makes us human in this digital age and how to foster moral imagination as to what the future of technology leadership could look like.

“For 75 years, the Aspen Institute has ignited leaders to think through the lens of human values—just as our founders envisioned when they called for ‘humanistic leaders who valued reason, knowledge, dialogue, culture, and moral inquiry,’” said Dar Vanderbeck, Vice President, Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. “The Technology Leaders Initiative continues this legacy by creating the conditions for influential leaders across the technology ecosystem to deepen their understanding, connect across perspectives, and turn insight into action—igniting the kind of values-driven, ethical leadership this digital era demands.”

Powered by Partnership: The Technology Leaders Initiative was founded by a coalition of AGLN Fellows and is enabled by the partnership of Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute. The initiative also launches with support from two founding partners: Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, a research-focused university in Abu Dhabi, and the first dedicated entirely to the advancement of science through AI, and the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, which brings together leading philosophers and humanities experts with technical developers and users of AI across academia, business, and government.

“MBZUAI was founded to advance AI openly and responsibly, grounded in the belief that innovation must serve society. Our partnership with the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Global Leadership Network on the Technology Leaders Initiative brings together technologists and policymakers to foster responsible innovation, build trust, and ensure AI advances the public good while expanding human opportunity,” said Eric Xing, President and University Professor at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence.

“As AI continues to reshape our societies, there is an urgent need to equip senior leaders with the frameworks and ethical grounding to make values-based decisions. By joining forces with the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Global Leadership Network, we are creating space for robust dialogue, cross-sector connection, and the kind of principled leadership this moment demands,” said Dr Caroline Green, Director of Research at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford.

As part of the AGLN, technology leaders participating in the initiative join a community of more than 4,000 Fellows who have gone through in one of the AGLN’s 16 cohort-based Fellowship programs focused on igniting the values-driven leadership needed to drive positive societal change around the world. 

Structure: The Technology Leaders Initiative follows the proven fellowship model established by the highly successful Henry Crown Fellowship in 1997 and tailored to meet the demands of today’s technology landscape. The experience consists of four seminars totaling approximately 25 days held in different locations around the globe representing technology power centers. Candidates must be nominated by a third party and selected by the Aspen Institute. The program seeks leaders who represent unique nodes of influence in their respective domains within the global technology ecosystem. 

For more information, contact Managing Director Amy Benziger at [email protected].

Learn more at aspeninstitute.org/programs/tech-leaders-initiative.

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About the Technology Leaders Initiative The Technology Leaders Initiative is a program of the Aspen Global Leadership Network designed to support influential leaders in the global technology ecosystem as they navigate the concentrated power, ethical complexity, and global trust gaps defining the digital age. The two-year program brings together senior technology leaders for structured dialogue, reflection, and collaboration to meet the leadership needs of our new digital age. aspeninstitute.org/programs/tech-leaders-initiative

About the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) The AGLN is a growing, worldwide community of more than 4,000 high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from over 60 countries who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their creativity, energy, and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. Because of their demonstrated accomplishments and abilities, they have been selected to join one of 16+ geographic or sector-specific  AGLN Fellowships around the world.  For more information, visit aspeninstitute.org/agln. 

About the Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners. For more information, visit aspeninstitute.org.

About the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford The Institute for Ethics in AI brings together world-leading philosophers and other experts in the humanities with the technical developers and users of AI in academia, business and government. The ethics and governance of AI is an exceptionally vibrant area of research at Oxford University and the Institute is an opportunity to take a bold leap forward from this platform. The Institute is part of the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Oxford.

Contact: Samantha Cherry
Associate Director, Communications and Community Engagement
Aspen Institute
[email protected]