Rosenstein Will Discuss How the Public Can Take Control of the Systems Influencing Our Daily Existence
“I’m excited to join Iceland Eclipse to imagine how much better our lives could be by putting the public in charge of the systems that shape the world around us”— Justin Rosenstein
IMXP Immersive Experiences has revealed that Justin Rosenstein, who co-founded Asana and also established the nonprofit One Project, will present a keynote speech at Iceland Eclipse on Thursday, August 13 at 4PM inside the AFTERGLOW Dome. Rosenstein’s talk, titled “Redesigning the Economy: How to Create the World We Want by Changing the Rules of the Game,” will delve into how the structure of economic and technological frameworks dictates the results society experiences — and how fresh models of democratic involvement can grant communities increased authority over the choices and resources impacting their lives. This keynote presentation and Q&A will be moderated by UG Strategies founder/CEO, Parag Bhandari.
Few individuals have been nearer to the design choices that transformed global connectivity and online collaboration than Rosenstein, an early product leader at both Google and Facebook whose innovations include Google Drive, Gmail Chat, and Facebook’s “Like” button. A student of consciousness and systems design, he was instrumental in pioneering novel methods for using technology to deliver feedback and manage resources, subsequently founding the nonprofit One Project to merge these abilities in addressing one of today’s most significant challenges: determining who has the authority to allocate a society’s resources. One Project designs and develops tools that empower people to shape economic decisions affecting their communities, and advocates for better tech-based guardrails and AI governance. One Project recently launched a first-of-its-kind participatory budgeting pilot with the City of Columbus, Ohio — a U.S. city of nearly one million people — giving residents a direct role in deciding how public funds are spent in their communities.
“The crises we can’t seem to solve, like the cost of living rising faster than wages, are symptoms of a root cause: an economy that rewards the wrong things,” said Justin Rosenstein, co-founder of Asana and founder of One Project. “I’m excited to join Iceland Eclipse to imagine how much better our lives could be by putting the public in charge of the systems that shape the world around us.”
The appearance aligns with Iceland Eclipse’s broader mission to stage an event where music, science, technology, culture, and transformative ideas coexist — uniting technologists, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, and cultural leaders around topics that reach far beyond the typical festival experience.
“Justin represents exactly the kind of voice Iceland Eclipse was created to bring into the conversation,” said Parag Bhandari, founder/CEO of UG Strategies (UGS), who will moderate the keynote. “He helped build some of the technologies that fundamentally changed how billions of people communicate and organize, and he is now applying that same systems thinking to an even bigger challenge: how we redesign the rules themselves.”
Rosenstein’s appearance will also inject questions surrounding artificial intelligence directly into the Iceland Eclipse technology conversation. One Project’s work considers not simply what increasingly powerful AI systems are capable of doing, but how democratic guardrails around those systems can ensure emerging technologies ultimately serve the public.
“Iceland Eclipse is about experiencing something extraordinary in the sky, but it is equally about asking extraordinary questions here on Earth,” said Mitch Morales, founder/CEO of IMXP Immersive Experiences. “Music, technology, science and human consciousness are all changing at an incredible pace, and Justin’s work challenges us to think about the underlying systems driving that change and potentially lead to entirely new ways of thinking about the future.”
During the moderated discussion, Bhandari and Rosenstein will explore whether large-scale public participation can produce better collective decisions, the proper relationship between experts and communities, and Rosenstein’s vision for an AI-enabled future in which technology strengthens rather than erodes democratic agency.
About Justin Rosenstein
Justin Rosenstein is a student of consciousness and systems design. He is the founder of One Project, a nonprofit building tools for democratic economic decision-making, and co-founder of the software company Asana. His co-inventions include Google Drive, Gmail Chat, and Facebook’s “Like” button. He is a founding advisor to the Center for Humane Technology and appears in the documentary The Social Dilemma.
Adam Krim
UG Strategies LLC
info@ugstrategies.com
