Peter Diamandis

Peter H. Diamandis ( ; born May 20, 1961) is an American marketer, engineer, physician, and entrepreneur of Greek-American ethnicity. He is best known for being founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University and coauthor of The New York Times bestsellers Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, The Future is Faster than You Think, How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives and BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World. He is former CEO and cofounder of the Zero Gravity Corporation, cofounder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., founder and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, cofounder of the International Space University, cofounder of Planetary Resources, cofounder of Celularity, founder of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, vice chairman and cofounder of Human Longevity, Inc. Early life Diamandis was born in The Bronx, New York. His parents, both Greek immigrants, were in the medical business. His father was a physician. From a very early age, Diamandis expressed a keen interest in space exploration. At age 8, he began giving lectures on space to his family and friends. At age 12, Diamandis won first place in the Estes Rocket Design Competition for building a launch system able to simultaneously launch three rockets. After graduating from Great Neck North High School in 1979, Diamandis attended Hamilton College for his first year, then transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study biology and physics. During his second year at MIT in 1980, Diamandis cofounded Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.