The Aspen Current
Ideas. Leadership. Action.
Videos
Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?
“Social contract” has quickly become one of the most-used, least-defined phrases in the AI policy conversation. This first event in a two-part series will trace the origin and history of the American social contract, examining how work became the anchor of economic security, mobility, and civic identity in the United States.
Videos
Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman
For decades, economists and policymakers have debated how to help workers get better jobs. But what if the more fundamental problem is that employers have systematically redesigned work itself to make a third of the workforce expendable? In his forthcoming book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman examines this idea and what it would take to reverse it.
Videos
Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellowship Announces the Founding Cohort of the Health Innovators Accelerator
HIA marks the first expansion of HIF’s platform beyond the Fellowship itself — extending the same rigor and standard of leadership to a wider community of health leaders working to build what’s next for health.
Videos
How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning
In this interview, Chelsea Miller of Upskill America speaks with Nick Greif of InStride about how employers can design education benefits that are more accessible, strategic, and aligned with workforce goals.
Videos
Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders
CDFI boards, leadership teams, investors, and regulators have long relied on a familiar set of financial metrics to assess organizational performance.
Videos
The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success
This is the final event in our Job Quality in Practice series. In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on May 7, 2026, we hear from the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows who are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company’s success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.
Videos
Happier Hours: Rethinking Time and Well-Being
Featuring behavioral scientist Cassie Holmes, exploring one of life’s most pressing questions: how can we spend our time to experience greater happiness and meaning in our days?
Videos
A New Blueprint for a Resilient Food System
2026 McNulty Prize Winner Tom McDougall is reimagining the food system. creating direct pathways from small farms to communities while strengthening local economies and expanding access to fresh food.
Videos
Education as Resistance: Ukraine’s Underground Schools
2026 McNulty Prize Winner Anna Novosad is creating safe spaces for children to learn, connect, and belong amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Videos
Building an Economy That Works for Everyone
2026 McNulty Prize Winner Rudy Espinoza is expanding access to capital for entrepreneurs too often left out of traditional financial systems, turning local action into lasting economic opportunity.
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OUR STORY
75 Years of Impact
This year, the Aspen Institute marks a milestone—our 75th anniversary. Founded in 1949, the Institute began with a bold idea: that addressing the world’s most pressing challenges requires dialogue, collaboration, and leadership rooted in human dignity and shared purpose.
