Aspen España Seminar 2024

Aspen Institute España will hold the Aspen España Seminar from 24 to 27 October 2024, at La Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda (Málaga). The Seminar will be moderated by Leigh Hafrey, Senior Lecturer in Behavioral and Policy Sciences at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and will bring together around 25 people from different areas of civil society.

In “Why People Still Matter,” we consider the impact of now-omnipresent digital technologies on our democracies, and the reciprocal impact that our political, economic, and civil structures can hope to exercise on their development.  The tech’ revolution of the past several decades has disproportionately benefited some individuals and communities and disadvantaged others.  As the pace of AI development accelerates, individuals, organizations, and whole societies seek ways to ensure a more equitable distribution of the gains and deter the top-down control and criminal predation that AI appears to foster.  Faced with the challenges of climate change, populism, authoritarianism, ongoing (de-)globalization, migration, and war, how can and should modern democracies guide the trajectory of AI development?  Across six sessions in “Why People Still Matter,” we identify practical steps to make the most of our novel circumstances for the benefit of all.

Aspen Institute España

The Aspen Institute España Foundation was established in 2010 to promote leadership inspired by civic values and to address critical issues for the future of society. Every year it organizes more than seventy debates, seminars and conferences on leadership and values, the digital future, sustainability, democracy, geopolitics and the economy.

The President of Aspen España is Javier Solana and its Secretary General is José M. de Areilza. The project is supported by fifteen Spanish companies and a large network of alumni. It is part of the international network of Aspen Institutes, present in more than twelve countries, and collaborates in a special way with The Aspen Institute in the United States. This philanthropic institution was founded in 1950, among others by José Ortega y Gasset, to train leaders in all sectors of society with a humanistic vision and a connection to civic and democratic values. Today it is recognised as one of the most influential think tanks in the world, with more than fifty ongoing programmes in the fields of public policy and leadership.

Leigh Hafrey

Leigh Hafrey is Senior Lecturer in Behavioral and Policy Sciences at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Since 1995, he has offered courses in communication, ethics, and leadership in the MBA and other graduate programs in the U.S. and abroad. He has also taught at Harvard Business School; served as co-Master of Mather House, one of the undergraduate residences in Harvard College; and for more than 20 years has moderated seminars in programs of the Aspen Institute. He serves on the boards of the Green Rural Opportunities Fund, a spin-off of the Butajira, Ethiopia-based GreenPath Food, and ClassACT HR73, an alumni initiative of the Harvard-Radcliffe Class of 1973. A former staff editor at The New York Times Book Review, Hafrey has published translations from French and German and columns, feature articles, essays, reviews, and interviews in The New York Times and other periodicals, as well as blog posts and business case studies for MIT Sloan. He is the author of two books on values and leadership, The Story of Success: Five Steps to Mastering Ethics in Business (2005) and War Stories: Fighting, Competing, Imagining, Leading (2016). Hafrey holds an A.B. in English Literature from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University.