Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is an expert on the role of information in the networked economy, discussing how big data changes how people live, work, and think. He is a prolific author and the Chair of Internet Governance and Regulation at the University of Oxford. He has extensively studied data privacy, governance in virtual worlds, law and entrepreneurship, e-government, big data, and is an advocate of the right to be digitally ‘forgotten’ in the form of expiration dates for personal information. As an expert on information law and regulation, he advises businesses, governments, and international organizations on the new economy and information society issues.

Mayer-Schönberger is co-author (with Kenn Cukier) of the international best-seller "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think". Acclaimed for his groundbreaking research into the role of information in the networked economy, Mayer-Schönberger is a visionary thinker about information innovation and governance, data privacy, memory and forgetting in a digital age, electronic government, and big data. He has also authored "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age" and "Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil," which explores the power of human cognition and was named one of the best business books of 2021 by the Financial Times.

He is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Mayer-Schönberger has published eight books and over a hundred articles and book chapters on the information economy. A frequent public speaker and sought expert for print and broadcast media worldwide, his insights have been featured in major outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Nature, Science, NPR, BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and WIRED. He has advised numerous corporations and organizations on thriving in new data-rich markets and has spoken at high-level corporate board retreats and large audience conventions for companies such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Roche, Haier, and Huawei.