“We need to show that we’re actually here to save lives,” he said. “To help the disabled, to cure diseases, to create technology that will allow us in the future to answer some existential questions. Like what is the brain, what is life, what is consciousness and, finally, what is the universe?”

MR. ITSKOV’S role in the 2045 Initiative is bit like that of a producer in the Hollywood sense of the word: the guy who helps underwrite the production, shapes the script and oversees publicity. He says he will have spent roughly $3 million of his own money by the time the second congress is over, and though he is reluctant to disclose his net worth — aside from scoffing at the often-published notion that he’s a billionaire — he is ready to spend much more.

For now, he is buying a lot of plane tickets. He flies around the globe introducing himself to scientists, introducing scientists to one another and prepping the public for what he regards as the inevitable age of avatars. In the span of two weeks, his schedule took him from New York (for an interview), to India (to enlist the support of a renowned yogi), home to Moscow, then to Berkeley, Calif. (to meet with scientists), back to Moscow and then to Shanghai (to meet with a potential investor).

When he isn’t pushing his initiative, he leads a life that could best be described as monastic. He meditates and occasionally spends days in silent retreat in the Russian countryside. He is single and childless, and he asked to keep mention of his personal life to a minimum, for fear that he would come across either as an oddball or an ascetic boasting about his powers of restraint.

“In some ways, I’m a monk,” he said. “Not entirely. Some monks struggle to stay monks. But I’m happiest when I live like a monk.”

Maybe it’s all his talk of androids, but Mr. Itskov has the kind of generically handsome face and perfect smile that seem computer-generated. He speaks English with a slight accent and wears Borrelli blazers and an Audemars Piguet watch made of rose gold, both of which seem like extravagances to him now. Rubles that aren’t plowed into the initiative are, to him, a waste.

“I used to have a collection of watches,” he says, grinning at how inane that now seems. “I gave most of them away, and I’m never buying anything like that again.”