What do dialogue, leadership, and action look like when the world is in the midst of a pandemic? It’s entrepreneurs aided by the Aspen Global Leadership Network focusing on the COVID-19 crisis. Or, Aspen Digital zeroing in on the media to understand the forces driving our country in a year of unprecedented change. And it looks like Aspen Challenge youth tackling issues in their neighborhoods even when the platform went virtual. All this and more was the work of the Aspen Institute in 2020. Read more about our impact.

The Aspen Challenge brings together 20 teams of students from across a selected city to pitch sustainable solutions to the issues facing their communities. These pitches aren’t just abstract concepts, they reflect weeks of collective effort. This work results in dozens of mini-revolutions across each city—demonstrating the power of youth voice, agency, and leadership. This year was a little different. The competition kicked off in Louisville in January, and then pivoted to a digital experience during the pandemic.

What does the Aspen Global Leadership Network do in a global pandemic? It responds to the moment. Fellows used their businesses and networks to get food, medicine, and other essential supplies to communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic. One fellow in the Middle East set up a food bank to feed thousands. In South Africa, a group of fellows mobilized faith groups to create safe spaces for victims of gender-based violence. And that was just the beginning.

The intersecting brutalities of COVID-19 and entrenched systemic racism have stripped bare any illusion that the economy is just or fair. The Aspen Partnership for an Inclusive Economy, launched with its founding partner the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, aims to change this. APIE connects people realizing breakthroughs at the community level with those crafting policy at the national level to ensure that change is informed by what works and what is just. This Institute-wide approach is already having an impact.

Aspen Digital’s strategy in a time of crisis has been simple: use expertise to shed more light than heat on the issues. That expertise lies in three complex areas: technology, cybersecurity, and media. During both the pandemic and the election cycle, Aspen Digital experts explained how misinformation spreads, and offered solutions for what newsrooms, social media platforms, businesses, and health authorities should do to respond.

Our work—and the impact we make on people and communities around the world—would not be possible without your financial support.
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