Philippe Van Nedervelde
Philippe Van Nedervelde, M.A. Comm., FLF is LF's International Spokesperson and Director, Informational Transparency Division. Philippe's notable contributions to Lifeboat Foundation to date include: • LF's SecurityPreserver proposal. • GETAS. • Evangelizing & PR (in the capacity of our International Spokesperson). • 1st Lifeboat 500 member. • Major additions to our NanoShield concept. Notable other affiliations of Philippe's include: • Executive Director for Europe Foresight Nanotech Institute. • Global Task Force Member of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. • Council of Advisors & Executive Advisory Team for the (now defunct) Extropy Institute. • The Board of World Technology Award Judges (Materials category) of the World Technology Network. • Chief Executive Officer and Founder of E-spaces. • Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Panoptic Systems. • Consulting Futurist of the Future Technologies Advisory Group. Philippe has represented the Foresight Nanotech Institute in Europe since 1997. He does so primarily by means of multimedia presentations throughout Europe to audiences of all sizes and compositions (academic, business, governmental, civilian); by interfacing with the media; by representation at European Union level events such as EU parliamentary hearings and through assistance and support to US Foresight Executives when they visit Europe for presentations etc. Thanks to an innate gift for languages and his life-long study of their associated cultures — not counting 6 and 5 humanities' years of Latin and Ancient Greek respectively, Philippe is fluent in five modern languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch... with Russian coming along well as the sixth since he is married to a beautiful Russian lady. He takes special care to represent Foresight with particular cultural sensitivity to Europe's at times significantly culturally divergent nations. As a regular keynote speaker at conferences and other events/occasions, he focuses his public education and communication efforts on making these complex multi-faceted technologies understandable, especially to lay audiences. Reflecting his active concern for maximizing the upside and minimizing the possible downsides of powerful emerging technologies and nanotechnology in particular, in 1999, as an active member of the Monterey Working Group on Molecular Nanotechnology (MNT) Research Policy Guidelines, Philippe coauthored the Foresight Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology, a proposed self-regulation tool for the nanoscience field and the burgeoning nanotechnology industry intended to assure that research, development and market deployments in this rapidly developing field proceed safely and responsibly. With the benefit of the perspective of his military experience regarding defensive strategies against WMDs — he completed Special Officer-Training in Nuclear-Biological-Chemical (NBC) weapons, defense & countermeasures in his capacity of Belgian Army Reserves Officer — he is also particularly concerned with the mitigation of the WMD-related and other national and international security risks deriving from emerging NBIC technologies. In January 2004, Philippe was invited and participated, in his capacity as an international expert on emerging innovative technologies including nanotechnology, in a select Experts-Consultation External Working Group on Unconventional Security Threats, organized in Washington D.C. by the Strategic Assessments Group (SAG) of the US Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence. The SAG is the Intelligence Community's focal point for providing integrated assessments of long-term political, economic, military, and technology trends in key regions of the world. As such, it runs a program involving outside experts with intelligence community analysts to promote the exchange of ideas and knowledge. Both as a public speaker and entrepreneur, his work is motivated by a passionate desire to service and assist the aspirations of societies, organizations and individuals for perpetual self-improvement and enhancement of their performance all-round through a cautious, judicious yet committed and determined application of emerging powerful technologies, in particular nanotechnology, bio-technology, information technology and cognitive technologies, a.k.a. the technologies of the NBIC convergence. On the for-profit side of his activities, since the early 90's Philippe's primary business and profession is in online interactive 3D graphics, a.k.a. networked or multi-user Virtual Reality or "tele-virtuality". In particular he is the award-winning founder, CEO and majority-owner of E-spaces, his VR production house specializes in online multi-user VR world and communities for business, governmental, education and consumer audiences. E-spaces has delivered well over 50 online VR and (interactive) 3D graphics projects. Major international customer-list includes NASA, UNESCO, the European Commission, Flemish Government, Ericsson Business Networks, Nokia and IBM. E-spaces has its HQ in Belgium, with production studios in various locations in eastern Europe as well as a satellite sales office in Los Angeles, CA. Philippe holds a master's degree in communication as well as a post-graduate degree in Media and Information Science from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and is a Fellow of the Lifeboat Foundation.