Esther Dyson’s Flight School

….(and if you’re near Dallas) you may want to attend Thursday’s Space Venture Finance Symposium, the venture-capital offshoot of the International Space Development Conference in Dallas, which starts this Friday. Yes, that’s the day after tomorrow - Thursday May 23.

I’ll be there, leading a panel and gathering background for Flight School. There’s still space for walk-ins, says organizer Burt Lee. And he adds (in writing, no one talks like this!):

* Convergence themes: space and information technology, space and aviation, space and nanotechnology.
* A stellar line up of speakers from the global finance community, many of whom are new faces on the space finance circuit, including Lon Levin, co-founder of XM Satellite Radio, and now Chief Strategic Officer of Transformational Space Corporation; Tom Pickens, CEO of SpaceHab and Managing Partner of Texas Nanotech Ventures; Bill Gail, Microsoft “space czar” and Director of Strategic Development for Microsoft Virtual Earth; Mike Lyon, Managing Director of Spaceport Singapore; John Higginbotham, Chairman (retired) of SpaceVest Capital; Peter Banks, General Partner of Red Planet Capital; and yours truly of course, among many other distinguished speakers.
* Showcasing of 17 featured space startup companies from the US, Canada and Europe, spanning space-IT markets, satellite servicing, entertainment, microgravity research, and space tourism.
* The first National Space Society Space Finance Award, to be announced in Dallas.

The National Space Society is sponsor and organizer, along with Innovarium Ventures of Washington DC. See you there!