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Esther Dyson is an acknowledged luminary in the technology industry, highly influential in her field. For more than 20 years she has been a widely known commentator focusing on emerging technologies, business models, markets, and companies. She wrote the newsletter Release 1.0 and ran PC Forum, the IT market's leading executive conference, until 2006. Ms. Dyson was the founding chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 1998 to 2000. In the 90s, she was chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Ms. Dyson’s current primary activity is investing in start-ups and guiding many of them as a board member. She does business as EDventure Holdings, the reclaimed name of the company she sold to CNET Networks in 2004. Her board seats include 23andMe, Boxbe, CVO Group (Hungary), Eventful.com, Evernote, IBS Group (Russia, advisory board), Meetup, Midentity (UK), NewspaperDirect, WPP Group and Yandex (Russia). Some of her past direct IT investments include Flickr, Del.icio.us, Postini, BrightMail, Medstory and Orbitz.
Bill Melton is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Global Internet Ventures, an Internet Holding Company. For more than 20 years, Mr. Melton has been an entrepreneur bringing technology to the financial industry.
He was the original founder of VeriFone Inc, creating in 1981 the transaction automation company that made credit authorization terminals ubiquitous on retail counters throughout the world. He was an early investor in America Online and served on its Board of Directors from 1991 to 1999.
Additionally, Mr. Melton was the initial funder of Transaction Network Systems (NASDAQ:TNSI), founder and CEO of CyberCash, and an initial funder of other high tech companies including Prio (sold to Infospace Inc.) and Maxager Technology. Mr. Melton currently sits on the board of directors for e4e, a leading BPO service provider. He is also an active investor and board member of several early stage venture capital companies. He holds a master’s degree in Asian Studies and Chinese philosophy.