CONFERENCE SPEAKERS
Eric Anderson
CEO, Intentional Software Company & Chairman, Planetary Resources Inc.
An aerospace and software engineer by training, Eric C. Anderson is a successful technology entrepreneur, CEO and angel investor. He serves as the president and CEO of Bellevue, Washington-based Intentional Software Corporation, where he and his business partner, Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., have developed the “Intentional Knowledge Workbench” that is revolutionizing the software development process and creating the next generation of productivity applications for knowledge workers. The platform reduces costs, increases accuracy, accelerates innovation, and saves time in the development of software applications and other digital work products.
Eric has been widely credited with creating and developing the business of, and global market for, orbital human spaceflight. In 1998, he co-founded Space Adventures, Ltd. and serves as the company’s chairman. Space Adventures is the only operational company providing opportunities to the world’s marketplace for private citizens to experience space. The company offers a spectrum of products including a historic return to circumnavigate the Moon, week-long missions to the International Space Station, zero-gravity flights, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital space missions. He has sold nearly half a billion dollars in spaceflight missions to all the self-funded private space explorers in history including Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen, Anousheh Ansari, Dr. Simonyi (see above), Richard Garriott and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. Most recently, global recording artist and UNESCO Artist for Peace Ambassador, Sarah Brightman, announced her intention to launch on a future orbital spaceflight mission.
Eric’s portfolio of innovative technology companies also includes Planetary Resources, Inc., Planetary Power, Inc., and his Planetary Holdings investment group. These companies take on the challenges of expanding the planet’s resource base to include the asteroids, bringing practical renewable energy technologies to the marketplace, and investing in other start-up ventures that aim to tackle daunting issues.
Eric worked at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center during his college years. In his early twenties, Eric was the principal and co-founder of Starport.com, which he sold to Space.com in 2000. In 2005, he co-authored the “Space Tourist’s Handbook”.
Eric’s philanthropic interests lie in education and global security. In that vein, he serves as co-founder of the Planetary Security Foundation, chairman emeritus of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and as a trustee of the X Prize Foundation, the Koshka Foundation and Seattle’s Museum of Flight. He is also a member of the Board of Governors for the National Space Society.
Eric has been an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization since 2006 and in 2008 was chosen by the World Economic Forum to become a member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders. He received SmartCEO Magazine’s 2008 “CEO of the Year” award, and in 2010, won the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award. Eric is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Virginia and lives in Bellevue, Wash. with his wife and their children.
