Futurist Series: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the author of the block-buster best-seller Big Data. He helps organizations understand how to capitalize on big data’s potential. For example, Walmart tripled sales by putting flashlights, batteries, and Pop-Tarts together at checkout during storms.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger founded Ikarus Software and developed Virus Utilities, which became the best-selling Austrian software product. The recipient of numerous awards for innovation and entrepreneurship, he was voted “Top Five Software Entrepreneur in Austria” in 1991 and Salzburg’s “Person of the Year” in 2000. In 1998, he joined Harvard University, where he taught at the John F. Kennedy School of Government for 10 years. After three years at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he joined the Oxford Internet Institute. Mayer-Schönberger has chaired the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy in the New Economy and is also the co-founder of the SubTech conference.