Dr. Hubert Burda presents award to successful internet entrepreneur

Internet entrepreneur and web pioneer Esther Dyson has been honored with the “Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership“ by publisher Dr. Hubert Burda, the sponsor of the innovation exchange DLD (Digital – Life – Design), at the first day (25 January 2009) of the conference. The award is presented to women in the media who successfully implement their extraordinary visions.

Esther Dyson was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1951 and studied at Harvard. She serves on several management boards, including those of 23andME, Boxbe and WPP Group. In addition, she holds investments in Flickr, Medstory and the Huffington Post, to name a few. Dyson perfectly represents the DLD spirit: Her goal is not to forecast developments and to take maximum advantage, but to shape the future by analyzing, investing in and founding Internet start-ups. She has recently complemented her portfolio by space travel and genetics. Dyson is currently undergoing cosmonaut training at Star City, Russia, which will enable her to stand in for Charles Simonyi, the inventor of Microsoft Word, and fly to the international space station ISS. She documents her adventures both on Flickr and the Huffington Post.

The goal of the “Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership“ is to encourage successful female media personalities to believe in their ideas and to implement them. The award pays homage to the late Aenna Burda who passed away in November 2005. The visionary entrepreneur remains one of the leading symbols of post-war Germany. From 1949, she set about turning a small publishing house into the world’s largest fashion publisher. In 1987, during the Cold War, she crossed the Iron Curtain with her flagship publication BURDA MODEMAGAZIN and expanded to Russia. Her sewing patterns have since gone digital: the online community BurdaStyle.com provides users with a platform to share copyrights for designs and sewing patterns. The successful transfer of do-it-yourself content to a multimedia setting is further prove of the pioneering spirit of women like Aenne Burda.

The “Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership“ was first presented at DLD 2006 and has since been presented once a year on the occasion of the DLD innovation exchange. Former laureates include Google’s Marissa Mayer (2006), Flickr’s Caterina Fake (2007) and TV host and entrepreneur Martha Stewart (2008), “America’s most famous homemaker”.

background information :

DLD (Digital, Life, Design), Europe’s leading innovation exchange of the 21st century co-sponsored by publisher Dr. Hubert Burda and high-tech investor Dr. Yossi Vardi, takes place in Munich between January 25 and 27, just a few days prior to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. About 800 internationally renowned experts, opinion-leaders and pioneers from the worlds of business, media, art and design get together for an exchange on new developments. For daily updates please refer to: www.dld-conference.com.