Jane Metcalfe Keynote Speaker

Jane Metcalfe is a successful entrepreneur and publisher. She is the Founder and CEO of NEO.LIFE, a media company created to explore the radical changes taking place in humans as we harness the tools of engineering and computer science to alter our own biology.  This Neobiological Revolution is an accelerating movement that harnesses the latest advances in technology and biology to alter the human race.

This is the next stage on from the Digital Revolution of recent decades. 

She has given remarkable keynote talks at TED, TED MED, IdeaCity, Wired and at numerous other talks at healthcare, biotechnology and other life science related events.  She is a visionary speaker and she has the ability to inspire audiences and to have them share in her excitement about the coming Neobiological Revolution.

In March 2020, she published a major new book – Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species, this book showcases the people, companies, and technologies that are transforming our bodies and our minds.  Chapters are contributed by leading scientists, thought leaders and artists.

Jane is known globally for co-founding and leading Wired Ventures, Inc., a diversified media company whose businesses included Wired Magazine, the search engine HotBot, and Wired Books. Wired wrote the first draft of the history of the Digital Revolution, and captured its spirit as well.  

In 2013, she and WIRED co-founder and life partner, Louis Rossetto,  were honored by the Reason Foundation with the Lanny Friedlander Prize for having “created a publication, medium, or distribution platform that vastly expands human freedom by increasing our ability to express ourselves, engage in debate, and generate new ways of understanding’.  In 2015, Jane and Louis were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at The 19th Annual Webby Awards.

Jane and Louis manage Força da Imaginaçao, an independent investment concern with interests in technology, media, and real estate. She is a board member at One Economy Corporation, which maximizes the potential of technology to help low-income people improve their lives and join the economic mainstream.

In between publishing ventures, Jane was the President of TCHO Chocolate, a ultra-premium brand whose mission is centred on teaching cocoa farmers how to make better beans for their products.  TCHO was acquired by a Japanese firm in 2018.

Jane is a founding board member of Ex’pression College for Digital Arts as well as the ZER01: The Art and Technology Network.   She is also vice president of the board of trustees of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.