Richard Garriott

Richard Garriott de Cayeux is an avid Explorer and Creator. His explorations have taken him on expeditions from pole to pole and across all 7 continents, he has orbited the earth abord the ISS and been on numerous deep submersible voyages including to the Challenger Deep. Richard currently serves as the President of The Explorers Club.

His work on expeditions commonly includes the search for extremophiles, environmental impacts and educational outreach. He has used exploration as the inspiration for much of his creations such as the virtual worlds he created through his 40 year career as a principal shaper of the video gaming industry.

Richard is also a founding father of the videogame industry. He has been inducted into the computer gaming hall of fame and has received the industry lifetime achievement award. He is credited with creating the now ubiquitous term “avatar” for one’s virtual self and the category of massively multiplayer games (MMORPGs).

Richard is also a principal shaper of commercial human spaceflight. He cofounded Space Adventures, the company which arranged the space flights for the first 7 private citizens live aboard the International Space Station. The son of a NASA astronaut, he became the first second-generation astronaut and remains a key leader in civilian and commercial space as an investor and Board member of institutions such as the X-Prize Foundation, Space Adventures, Space X and ZeroG Corp.