Chris Anderson (born 1957) is a British-American businessman who is the head of TED, a non-profit organization that provides idea-based talks and hosts an annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Previously he founded Future Publishing. Early life and education Anderson was born to British parents in Pakistan in 1957. His father was "an eye surgeon and evangelical Christian", and ran a mobile hospital in rural Pakistan. He has two sisters, and is the middle child. He studied at Woodstock School in the Himalayan mountains of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India briefly, before moving to Monkton Combe School, a boarding school in Bath, England. At the University of Oxford, Anderson initially studied physics before changing to philosophy, politics and economics, and graduating in 1978. Career Anderson began a career in journalism, working in newspapers and radio. He produced a world news service in the Seychelles. After returning in 1984 to the UK, Anderson was captivated by the home-computer revolution. He became an editor at two of the UK's early computer magazines, Personal Computer Games and Zzap!64. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications, but he eventually expanded it into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design. It doubled in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Anderson moved to the United States. There he developed Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users' website IGN. Anderson eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the name Future US. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people. Based on this financial success, Anderson established a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation. He wanted to find new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and ideas. In 2012, Anderson was honored with an Edison Achievement Award for his commitment to innovation throughout his career. TED In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of technology, entertainment and design, held in Monterey, California. Anderson left Future to work full-time on TED. He expanded the conference to cover all topics, including science, culture, academia, and business and key global issues. He added a fellows program, which now has some 400 alumni. He also established the TED