Riva Melissa-Tez - entrepreneur, writer, philosopher, and life extension activist - has joined the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technology, as an Affiliate Scholar. We are pleased and honored to have her with us.

Riva-Melissa Tez lives in San Francisco where she works with investors funding transformative technologies. A huge fan of children and tech, her first company was a children’s store in London, before she moved to Germany to co-found a digital creative platform for kids. Whilst there, her academic background in Philosophy provoked an interest in the ongoing implications of tech and the ramifications for future generations.  She founded Berlin Singularity, a group focused on bringing emerging technology discussions to mainland Europe. Through her efforts with Berlin Singularity, she spun out a consultancy group working with early-stage biotech companies to help connect them to funding. She has held teaching positions at the DAB and HTW business schools in Germany and also won LinkedIn’s first ever European hackathon.

Riva is a regular columnist for The European Magazine, a contributor to i-D Magazine and is currently penning a philosophical children’s novel. Her essay ‘The Future Doesn’t Care About Your Start-Up’ was published in ‘Anticipating 2025- A Guide to Radical Changes ’.  Her piece, ‘Finance: An Industry Based on Psychology’ was written in response to the 2014 Stanford Institutional Investor Forum. Her recent presentations include ‘Investing from First-Principles: The Need for Systematic Game-Changers to Create Paradigm Shifts’ for Yale, ‘Obstacles Faced by Emerging Technologies’ for Birkbeck University,  ‘Funding Emerging Technologies’ for Oxford University and ‘Start-Ups to Advance Humanity’ for Stanford University, along with ‘Investing in the Future: Turning Theory into Business Practice’ for the 2014 Effective Altruist Summit. She was also a 2014 Apple Spokesperson on Philosophy and Emerging Technology.

Riva is currently working alongside Steve Aoki and Maria Konvalenko on The Longevity Cookbook; a forthcoming recipe book and research project focused on delaying the aging process. She is a Strategic Advisor to the Transhumanist Political Party.