Dmitry Orlov

Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad, USSR, into an academic family, and emigrated to the US in the mid-1970s. He holds degrees in Computer Engineering and Linguistics, and has worked in a variety of fields, including high-energy physics, Internet commerce, network security and advertising. Starting in 2005, Dmitry has published hundreds of articles, two books and five books of essays. He has given numerous talks and interviews, and delivered keynote addresses at many conferences. His work has been translated into many languages. A decade ago Dmitry made a dramatic change in lifestyle, trading dependency and financial security for resilience, self-sufficiency and freedom. He gave up on corporate employment in Boston’s high tech sector, sold the condominium and the car, bought a sailboat and set off sailing. This experiment has yielded a wide variety of insights into just how far it is possibly to downscale and simplify one’s lifestyle while remaining productive, comfortable and civilized, which skills and technologies are needed, and which are superfluous. Having to decide which specific elements of technology are appropriate to this lifestyle, which are not, and which are harmful, naturally caused him to focus on the wider problem of making conscious and deliberate technological choices.