Aspen Institute España is hosting a Tech & Society Socrates Seminar from May 29 to May 31, 2025 in collaboration with US Aspen Institute Socrates Program. The Seminar titled “Rising Generations: Imagining the Human Future” will be moderated by William Powers, Author, Journalist and Technologist. The seminar will bring together a group of 20/25 participants from diverse sectors of civil society. This seminar is a part of the 2025 Tech & Society Program held in collaboration with Fundación Telefónica.
The Socrates Seminar is a collaborative endeavor for participants from different fields. Participants are asked to contribute their understanding of and reactions to carefully selected readings, with the guidance of moderators who are experts in their sector. Participants develop an understanding of the reading material and formulate responses to the issues that they cover at the roundtable meetings. The seminars provide stimulating dialogue, values-based introspection, and dynamic debate that serves to enhance participants’ leadership capabilities.
TECH & SOCIETY
This program, co-organized with Fundación Telefónica, has become the leading forum in Spain for reflection on the major issues raised by advances in digital technology and its influence on such diverse areas as human relationships, politics, education, the economy, and medicine.
RISING GENERATIONS
Imagining the Human Future
We’re living through a time of dramatic change. Thanks largely to technology and its manifold effects on society, human existence is being transformed in ways we’ve barely begun to understand. Is AI a gift to civilization or a potential threat? How will climate change alter life on Earth? Will humans eventually live on other planets? Might we help shape the future by imagining the various ways it could unfold? Which scenarios hold the most promise and what can we do now to increase the chances that these outcomes prevail? Voices from different generations will help us navigate these questions, drawing on the insights of great thinkers who have tried over the centuries to glimpse the future, including some who are working on this puzzle today. There’s much to learn from their philosophical, political, scientific, spiritual and artistic visions. Join us for a stimulating dialogue about where humanity might be headed long-term and how rising generations can help make it a positive, flourishing future.
MODERATOR
William Powers is a writer and technologist. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. The book took him into the technology world, including five years at MIT as a research scientist working on ways artificial intelligence can help build better societies. He lives in Massachusetts and is Visiting Scholar for Humanistic Technologies at the Max Planck Center for Humans and Machines in Berlin.
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.
