AMES, Iowa — A leading big data researcher, entrepreneur and visionary thinker will discuss the big data revolution during a presentation at Iowa State University.
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger will present "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think" at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. His talk is the keynote address for the university's National Affairs Series on Innovation, and is part of the Wonder of Words Festival. Mayer-Schönberger's presentation is free and open to the public.
Best known for his groundbreaking research into the role of information in the networked economy, Mayer-Schönberger is a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University's Internet Institute. With Kenneth Cukier, an editor of The Economist, he wrote "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think." The book argues that big data analytics are radically changing how people see and process the world. And it explores the positives and the dark side of sophisticated number crunching.
Mayer-Schönberger also is a staff faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center of Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He is the founder of the data security company Ikarus Software in his native Austria, and an advisor to governments, business and NGOs on information innovation. Mayer-Schönberger is the author of eight books, including "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age," which won the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology; and the 2010 Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science and Technology Politics. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Science Magazine, The New York Times, Nature, WIRED and several European publications.
Mayer-Schönberger's lecture is co-sponsored by the colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Business, Engineering, Human Sciences, and Liberal Arts and Sciences; the Plant Sciences Institute; the Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics; the National Affairs Series, the departments of Agronomy, Animal Science, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Mathematics, Sociology and Statistics; the Wonder of Words Festival; and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body.
The lecture is part of the Wonder of Words Festival that connects readers, writers and publishers at events in Downtown Des Moines and surrounding communities to celebrate reading and share the joy of lifelong learning.
More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.
