Viktor Mayer-Schenberger

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Professor Mayer-Schönberger has published seven books, as well as over a hundred articles (including in Science) and book chapters. His most recent book, the awards-winning 'Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age' (Princeton University Press 2009) has received favorable reviews by academic (Nature, Science, New Scientist) and mainstream media (New York Times, Guardian, Le Monde, NPR, BBC, Wired) and has been published in four languages. Ideas proposed in the book have now become official policy, e.g. of the European Union. A native Austrian, Professor Mayer-Schönberger founded Ikarus Software in 1986, a company focusing on data security, and developed 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 chaired the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy, is the cofounder of the SubTech conference series, and served on the ABA/AALS National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists. He is on the advisory boards of corporations and organizations around the world, including Microsoft and the World Economic Forum. He is a personal adviser to the Austrian Finance Minister on innovation policy. He holds a number of law degrees, including one from Harvard and an MS(Econ) from the London School of Economics, and while in high school won national awards for his programming and the Physics Olympics of his home state. In his spare time, he likes to travel, go to the movies, and learn about architecture.