Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is the most forward-looking and articulate speaker about the effect of new technology on business. He is the New York Times best-selling author, former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, and the co-founder of 3D Robotics, now Kitty Hawk, a leading unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) company.

Chris isn't sitting on the sidelines of the digital revolution. He was the co-founder and CEO of 3D Robotics, which is now part of Kitty Hawk, an air taxi company backed by Google. Chris serves as COO and Chief Product Officer at Kitty Hawk. He is also the founder of DIY Drones, an aerial robotics community that builds and races scaled-down autonomous cars utilizing computer vision and deep learning. The industry is at the intersection of everything from big data to the Internet of Things.

His first book, The Long Tail, is the definitive account of how the internet undermined blockbuster-culture and created an economy of targeted niche products. His next book, Free, explored the new online marketplace of "free" products, explaining how companies can make money by giving things away. In his most recent book Makers, Chris introduces a new era of micro-manufacturing. New technologies such as 3D printing and electronics assembly allow anyone with an idea to build it. Data can become objects—and everyone nowadays has access to data. This means the extraordinary democratization of information which the internet has enabled is about to be mirrored by the democratization of physical creation.

While editor-in-chief at Wired, Chris led the magazine to two dozen National Magazine Award nominations, winning the prestigious top prize for general excellence in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Chris stepped down from his role at the magazine after an incredibly successful 12-year run to become CEO of 3D Robotics. He worked at The Economist for seven years in various positions and served as an editor at the two premier science journals Science and Nature. Anderson was featured as one of the top 100 thinkers in TIME magazine's annual list. In 2013, he was listed on Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers.