Chris Anderson (born 1957) is the curator of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), which hosts conferences in the US and Europe each year and an open-access website where TED talks can be viewed by the public. Previously he founded Future Publishing.
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Anderson was born in Pakistan in 1957, one of three children.[1] His parents were medical missionaries, and he spent most of his early life in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. He studied at a boarding school in the Himalayan mountains of India, Woodstock School, before moving to a boarding school in Bath, UK. At Oxford University, he studied Physics, then changed to Politics, Philosophy and Economics, to eventually graduate in 1978.[1]
Anderson began a career in journalism, working on local newspapers, then producing a world news service in the Seychelles, and later working as an editor first on Personal Computer Games, then on Zzap!64, both early computer magazines.[1] In 1985 he launched a publishing company devoted initially to hobbyist computer magazines. Future Publishing (based in Somerton and then Bath, UK) rapidly grew, expanding into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, going public in 1999. In 1994 Anderson moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to launch magazines including Business 2.0. Future grew to more than 130 magazines and more than 1,500 employees.
In 2010, with the username @TEDChris , Anderson accumulated more than 1 million followers on Twitter. In August 2010 he went back to his birth place of Pakistan with his wife Jacqueline Novogratz to distribute 300 LifeSaver jerry cans in aid of the floods there.
In 2001, Anderson left Future and, through his non-profit foundation, acquired TED. Under his stewardship, the mission of TED shifted to "ideas worth spreading".[1] As of January 2011, over 850 talks are available free online. By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In July 2010, the viewing figure stands at more than 290 million, attracting a still growing global audience.[2] He also oversaw introduction of the TED Prize, the TED Fellows Program, the TED open translation program, and the TEDx program, allowing hundreds of independently organized TED-like events to be held around the world. Anderson spoke about the power of visual media at TED Global 2010 and its central role in the future of internet based learning.
He is married to Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a venture capital fund that supports social enterprises and has three daughters, Elizabeth, Anna, and Zoe (1986-2010).[3]