ESTHER DYSON is an investor, journalist, author, businesswoman, commentator, and philanthropist. She is a leading angel investor focused on health care, open government, digital technology, biotechnology, and outer space. She is chairman of EDventure Holdings and executive founder of Wellville, a ten-year project to show the long-term value, both social and financial, of investing in health. Overall, she is fascinated by new business models, new technologies and new markets (both economically and politically). From October 2008 to March of 2009, she lived in Star City outside Moscow, Russia, training as a backup cosmonaut. Apart from this brief sabbatical, she is an active board member for a variety of startups.
She has a BA in economics from Harvard and was founding chairman of ICANN from 1998 to 2000. In addition, she wrote the bestselling, widely translated book Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age.