Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the University of Oxford. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.
He has published twelve books, including most recently “Framers – Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil” (Dutton/Ebury, with Kenneth Cukier and Francis de Vericourt), the international bestseller “Big Data” (HMH, co-authored with Kenneth Cukier, translated into more than twenty languages) and the awards-winning “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” with Princeton University Press. He is the author of over a hundred articles and book chapters on the governance of information.
After successes in the International Physics Olympics and the Austrian Young Programmers Contest, Mayer-Schönberger studied in Salzburg, Harvard and at the London School of Economics. In 1986 he founded Ikarus Software, a company focusing on data security and developed the Virus Utilities, which became the best-selling Austrian software product. He was voted Top-5 Software Entrepreneur in Austria in 1991 and Person of the Year for the State of Salzburg in 2000. He has chaired the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy in the New Economy, bringing together leading strategists and decision-makers of the new economy. In 2014 he received a World Technology Award in the law category for his work.
He is a frequent public speaker, and sought expert for print and broadcast media worldwide. He and his work have been featured in (among others) New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Nature, Science, NPR, BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, WIRED, Ars Technica, and Daily Kos. He is also on the boards of foundations, think tanks and organizations focused on studying the information economy, and advises governments, businesses and NGOs on new economy and information society issues.