Esther Dyson could very well be called a futurist – for decades she has been at the cutting edge of digital technology, first as a reporter for Forbes and The New York Times and later as an active investor in a host of start-ups including XCOR, Eventful, Flickr and Del.icio.us.

Not content with her achievements on this planet she may soon be leaving for the International Space Station as an astronaut. Dyson is also one of the first ten volunteers in the Personal Genome Project. She is a founding member of digerati and is also prominent philanthropist.

She graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics.