Bio
Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson is an active investor in a variety of start-ups, focusing on technology. Her portfolio of private space and air travel investments includes XCOR Aerospace, Space Adventures/Zero G, Icon Aircraft, Coastal Aviation Software and Airship Ventures. She has flown weightless on Zero-G four times, but hopes to go up again soon.
She is also the organizer of Flight School, an executive workshop for start-ups in air and space. It's in hiatus for 2008, but will resume in 2009.
On the IT side, her investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us, both sold to Yahoo! and Medstory, sold to Microsoft. Currently, she sits on the boards of 23andMe, Meetup, WPP Group, Eventful.com, Evernote, Boxbe and Yandex, the leading Russian search company.
Dyson sold her business EDventure Holdings, along with its Release1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference, to CNET Networks in 2004; PC Forum and Release 1.0 played key roles in the early development of the PC software marketplace and the commercial Internet. Dyson left CNET at the end of 2006 and (with permission) has resumed doing business under the name of EDventure Holdings.
John Hagel
John Hagel III is an author and former consultant who specializes in the intersection of business strategy and information technology. In 2007, Hagel, along with John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, founded the Deloitte Center for the Edge Innovation. Hagel is also involved with a number of other organizations, including the World Economic Forum, Innovation Exchange with John Seely Brown and Henry Chesbrough, the International Academy of Management, and the Aspen Institute.
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