Sister Earth - Making Venus Humanity's Second Home
As the 21st century ushers in a new era of space exploration and commercialization, the drive to make humanity a multi-planet species is gaining momentum and becoming increasingly plausible. Space agencies are pushing hard to return humans to the Moon and establish a permanent presence there. Meanwhile, Elon Musk and SpaceX are leading the charge toward building a colony on Mars within a few decades. And then there is Venus, which offers humanity something that cannot be found on the Moon or Mars: gravity! This alone warrants serious consideration to our nearest neighbor as a potential destination for our species, but Venus can offer us so much more. In this session, we will provide an overview of why Venus may in fact end up becoming humanity's best chance at a long-term "second home" in the solar system.
Guillermo Sohnlein is a serial entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and explorer, with over 20 years' experience in the fields of space, oceans, and sustainability. He currently serves on several Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards, including startups, funds, and nonprofit organizations. He is the founder of Humans2Venus, a family of strategically aligned ventures with the common vision of establishing a permanent human presence of 1000 people in the Venusian atmosphere by 2050.
A long-time advocate for the global entrepreneurial movement focused on space, Guillermo previously founded the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs in 2003, Space Angels Network (now Space Angels) in 2006, and Ansible Space Communications Systems (now RBC Signals) in 2014. In his parallel career within ocean exploration, he co-founded OceanGate in 2009, the OceanGate Foundation in 2010, the Sea-Space Initiative in 2011, and Blue Marble Exploration in 2013. He began his entrepreneurial career in 1998 as co-founder of Milo (acquired by Voxeo), a speech recognition application development company based in Silicon Valley.
A former officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, Guillermo was admitted to the Explorers Club of New York in 2012. He earned his AB in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and his JD from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.
