Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein set for Iceland Eclipse keynote on redesigning the economy

Justin Rosenstein will speak at Iceland Eclipse in Reykjavik on Aug. 13, joining a moderated keynote on how economic and technology systems shape public outcomes and how democratic participation could change them. The appearance puts AI governance, participatory decision-making and the future of the economy on stage at the festival.

Why it matters: - Rosenstein is taking ideas about economic design and democratic participation from product and policy circles to a public stage at Iceland Eclipse. - The keynote puts AI governance and the question of who controls major systems in front of a cross-disciplinary audience of technologists, artists, scientists and entrepreneurs. - One Project’s work points to a broader shift: communities are being invited to help decide how public resources and emerging technologies are governed.

What happened: - IMXP Immersive Experiences announced that Justin Rosenstein will deliver a keynote at Iceland Eclipse on Thursday, Aug. 13 at 4 p.m. in the AFTERGLOW Dome in Reykjavik, Iceland. - The session is titled “Redesigning the Economy: How to Create the World We Want by Changing the Rules of the Game.” - Parag Bhandari, founder and CEO of UG Strategies, will moderate the keynote and Q&A. - Rosenstein is co-founder of Asana and founder of the nonprofit One Project.

The details: - Rosenstein previously helped shape products at Google and Facebook, including Google Drive, Gmail Chat and Facebook’s Like button. - One Project builds tools for democratic economic decision-making and advocates for stronger tech-based guardrails and AI governance. - One Project recently launched a participatory budgeting pilot with the City of Columbus, Ohio, giving residents a direct role in deciding how public funds are spent. - Columbus is described as a U.S. city of nearly one million people. - Rosenstein said the crises society struggles to solve, including rising living costs, reflect an economy that rewards the wrong things. - Rosenstein said the goal is to imagine a better future by putting the public in charge of the systems that shape daily life. - Bhandari said Rosenstein helped build technologies that changed how billions of people communicate and organize, and is now applying that systems thinking to redesign the rules themselves. - Mitch Morales, founder and CEO of IMXP Immersive Experiences, said Iceland Eclipse is designed to combine music, science, technology, culture and transformative ideas.

Between the lines: - The keynote signals that Iceland Eclipse wants to be more than a festival stage event and more like a forum for long-range debate about society and technology. - Rosenstein’s presence connects Silicon Valley product history with a growing debate over democratic control, AI oversight and economic fairness. - The framing suggests the conversation will move beyond feature-level AI talk and toward who should set the guardrails for powerful systems.

What’s next: - Bhandari and Rosenstein will discuss whether large-scale public participation can produce better collective decisions. - The session will also examine the relationship between experts and communities. - The discussion is expected to address Rosenstein’s vision for an AI-enabled future that strengthens democratic agency rather than weakening it. - One Project’s participatory budgeting work in Columbus may serve as a concrete example of the model Rosenstein wants to expand.

The bottom line: - Iceland Eclipse is using Rosenstein’s keynote to frame a bigger question: how to redesign the systems that determine economic choices, public spending and the role of AI in civic life.