Oxford professor speaks at Northwest University

The "Father of Big Data" has recently pointed out that big data can be used not only in the medical, educational and other industries, but also in reshaping economic structure.

Victor Mayer-Schoenberg, professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University's School of Networking, known as the "Father of Big Data", expressed that idea in his speech at Lecture 500 of the Northwest University Innovation Forum held on Dec 12 in Northwest University headquartered in Xi’an, capital of China’s Northwest Shaanxi province.

In his academic report entitled The Big Data Age Continues - Smart Machines, New Insights and a Shifting Economy, Mayer-Schoenberg said that in the era of big data, people need to think about problems from a new perspective and form a thinking mode of "collecting data - analyzing data - asking questions - finding answers".

“Big data requires people to be more open and courageous, trial and error repeatedly, and not afraid of failure, in order to achieve greater breakthroughs in existing achievements,” said Mayer-Schoenberg.

Before his report, Mayer-Schoenberg received a commemorative seal of Northwest University made of Lantian Jade as a keepsake from Chang Jiang, vice president of Northwest University.

Chang Jiang, vice president of Northwest University, thanked Schoenberg for his lecture and briefly introduced the development of the university’s Institute of Information Science and Technology to him and to the assembled teachers and students from other colleges and universities.

“I hope that through this exchange, Professor Schoenberg and his team would continue to care about and support the construction and development of our university, especially the Information Science and Big Data Research Institute. More in-depth cooperation and exchanges will be exhibited,” Chang said.

Since December 2015, Northwest University has had an Innovation Forum. With a global perspective and thinking, Northwest University has planned and built platforms for innovation, development and exchange, dissemination of advanced ideas, interpretation of latest policies, inheritance of the scientific spirit and international cooperation in science and technology.