Mr. Anderson has remained in high demand internationally as a speaker since co-founding Space Adventures and Planetary Resources and making history by launching the world’s first private space travelers to orbit. As a speaker, his experience includes delivering keynote addresses to large corporate, educational, and non-profit audiences, and detailed interviews and feature appearances in television news and educational programs. Mr. Anderson draws heavily upon the lessons he learned in creating the world’s first space tourism company in his speeches. Although the commercial space market serves as the framework, his topics are applicable to any industry, market, academic endeavor, or other area.
Currently, Mr. Anderson serves as the CEO of Intentional Software Corporation. The company’s mission is to help organizations collaborate in creating and sharing ideas. With Microsoft’s former chief architect Charles Simonyi as lead investor, Mr. Anderson is leading the team to develop a software platform for a new generation of team productivity applications.
He is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company. Planetary Resources will revolutionize space exploration by bringing the natural resources of space within humanity’s economic sphere of influence. Resources extracted from near-Earth asteroids will play a key role in the development of a space economy and will be the main driver in allowing humanity to become a flourishing multi-planetary species.
Mr. Anderson is Co-Founder and Chairman of Planetary Power Inc., a renewable energy company with a vision to make efficient and reliable energy accessible anywhere on the planet. Initially focused on the telecom industry, Planetary Power’s hybrid power generation technology uses the best of renewable and conventional technology to reduce the cost and environmental impact of off-grid power generation with increased reliability.
More About Eric Anderson…
He is a Founding Partner of the Space Angels Network, a global network for angel investors that offers unique investment opportunities in the commercial space sector.
He is also Chairman of Personal.com, the first cloud-based collaboration platform for people and teams to securely co-manage structured information (i.e. computable data) that is critical at both the office and home, and Booster Fuels, a mobile refueling service.
Mr. Anderson’s philanthropic efforts are focused on the Planetary Security Foundation, an organization dedicated to informing and educating the public about nuclear weapons, the greatest risk facing humanity’s future, and developing strategies for how that risk can be eliminated.
Mr. Anderson graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia where he studied aerospace and software engineering.
He is a Board Member of the X PRIZE Foundation and the Koshka Foundation. He is also a Member of the World Economic Forum and Young Presidents Organization. In 2010, Mr. Anderson was selected as an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award winner.
Mr. Anderson lives in Seattle with his wife and their children.