Dan Fredinburg
| Dan Fredinburg | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Daniel Paul Fredinburg September 8, 1981 Mission Viejo, California, United States |
| Died | April 25, 2015 (aged 33) South Base Camp, Mount Everest, Nepal |
| Cause of death | Head injuries resulting from an avalanche |
| Education |
University of California, Irvine University of Southern California Stanford University University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupation | Manager and head of privacy at Google X |
Daniel Paul "Dan" Fredinburg (September 8, 1981 – April 25, 2015) was an American Google executive, climate activist, inventor, explorer and entrepreneur. He died on April 25, 2015, of head injuries in an avalanche at Mount Everest's South Base Camp triggered by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.
Fredinburg grew up on a farm in Norfork, Arkansas, and left home at age 15 to attend the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts in Hot Springs.
He graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2004, earned a master's degree in intelligent robotics from the University of Southern California, and partially completed other graduate programs at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. He began working for Google in 2007.
Fredinburg was head of privacy at Google X, an advisor on Project Loon, and the co-founder of The Laundry SF and Save the Ice. He launched Google Adventure Team, an effort to map geological areas and formations on Earth at a similar level of detail to Google Earth's street-level view of cities, towns, and other populated areas (including the Great Barrier Reef, the floors of the oceans, and high and/or remote mountains and mountain ranges, including the Himalayas).
Fredinburg was co-inventor of more than a dozen software technologies that were patented by Google.
Prior to working at Google, Fredinburg worked on future combat systems in the defense industry at Boeing.
Although non-disclosure agreements prevented Google from commenting on the "two or three different Google projects” related to Fredinburg's expedition work, at a minimum, he was one of four company employees documenting Mount Everest ascent routes for a Google Earth-type project. In a 2013 interview for Time magazine, Fredinburg explained the company's goal as "Different adventurers and people who want to explore from the comfort of their homes have the opportunity to explore and see these different corners of the world." According to The Independent, Fredinburg's job title at the time was "Google 'I' adventurer", and the project goal was to offer the experience of climbing the world's highest mountains to people who, "lack the willingness to actually, like, climb a mountain."
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