Esther Dyson is editor of Release 1.0, the influential quarterly newsletter published by CNET Networks, and runs PC Forum and other events for CNET. She sold her business, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in early 2004. Previously, she had co-owned EDventure and written/edited Release 1.0 since 1983.

At Release 1.0 and in her private investment activities, Dyson focuses on emerging technologies, emerging companies and emerging markets. Among the topics she has covered for Release 1.0 recently are social software and social networks, personal health records, identity management, new approaches towards search and the use of "consumer" Internet services such as Yahoo! eBay and Google by small businesses.

Among her angel investments were both Flickr and del.icio.us, both sold to Yahoo! last year. She is also an investor in and sits on the boards of Meetup.com, EVDB (eventful.com), CVO Group (an online recruiting service that operates throughout Central and Eastern Europe) and Yandex, Russia's leading search company with approximately 50-percent market share. She is also an investor in Midentity (UK), Bandalong, Dotomi, Activeweave, Systinet, Newspaperdirect.com, Tacit, Vizu, Zero-gravity, Space Adventures and other start-ups. Dyson travels widely and has spent time in Russia, Hungary, Poland, Hungary, Latvia, South Africa, India and China in the last year (along with the US, Canada, England, Germany, Spain and France). She enjoys working with start-ups, whether they are counties or companies.

She also sits on the board of WPP Group, the worldwide communications/marketing company, and was on the consumer advisory board of Orbitz until its recent sale to Cendant.

Dyson is also an active player in discussions and international policy-making concerning the Internet and society. From 1998 to 2000, she was founding chairman of ICANN (the organization responsible for overseeing the Domain Name System, which is currently in the news again as the UN attempts to take control of it). A variety of government officials worldwide turn to her for advice on Internet policy issues.

In 1994, she had already explored the impact of the Net on intellectual property (among other things, why many software products are now turning into online services). In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals' lives, Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. It includes a number of chapters about today's hot topics such as security, privacy, anonymity and intellectual property.

In addition, she donates time and money as a trustee to emerging organizations (Bridges.org, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Eurasia Foundation). For several years in the Nineties she was chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

After graduating from Harvard in economics, Dyson began her serious career in 1974 as a fact-checker for Forbes and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977 she joined New Court Securities as "the research department," following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, renaming it EDventure Holdings. The daughter of an English physicist and a Swiss mathematician, Dyson started traveling in Eastern Europe in 1989 and eventually helped to fill the small but vital vacuum at the intersection of Eastern Europe, high-tech and venture capital, even as she remains active in the US and Western Europe.