Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson is the owner of TED, a non-profit organization that provides lectures based on ideas and holds an annual conference in Vancouver, Canada. After his internship in Bath, England, he moved to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. Chris then served as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a worldwide news service on the Seychelles. Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor in one of the UK's first computer magazines. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States, where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular IGN video game site. Chris finally founded Imagine and Future. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people. This success allowed Chris to create a private non-profit organization, the Sapling Foundation, hoping to find new ways to tackle difficult global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, above all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual luminaire meeting in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left the Future to work full time at TED.