The Aspen Ideas Festival program of events includes discussions, seminars, panels, and tutorials from journalists, designers, innovators, politicians, diplomats, presidents, judges, musicians, artists, and writers.

[6] Past AIF speakers include President Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Ehud Barak, Madeleine Albright, Murray Gell-Mann, Sylvia Earle, Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Frum, Salam Fayyad, and Paul Ryan.

As a Germanophile, he and his wife, Elizabeth Paepcke, actualized a celebration and gathering in Aspen in June 1949 to mark the two-hundredth birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Under Paepcke, the Aspen Institute's programs explored a range of topics through lectures and discussions with top thinkers in a variety of fields from science to the arts.

[14][15][16] Past speakers include Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Sandra Day O'Connor, Barbra Streisand, and Joe Biden.

[15] The Aspen Ideas Festival Scholars program nominates individuals from all over the world for their unique accomplishments and dedication to improving their communities and making advances in their field of work.

[22] The Franklin Project—an initiative to make a year of national service a common opportunity and expectation for young Americans—was created as a result of this festival conversation.