Hal R. Varian is the Chief Economist at Google. He started in May 2002 as a consultant and has been involved in many aspects of the company, including auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy and public policy.
He is also an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley in three departments: business, economics and information management. He was the founding dean of the i-School at Berkeley.
He received his SB degree from MIT in 1969 and his MA in mathematics and Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley in 1973. He has also taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and other universities around the world.
View video of Hal Varian's keynote address, "Beyond Big Data"
Neil Fantom is a Manager at the World Bank in Washington DC. He leads the World Bank’s Open Data initiative, and oversees the publication of World Development Indicators and Global Development Finance and the compilation and dissemination of the associated datasets. He has worked extensively to help developing countries improve their statistical capacity, working in Malawi and Botswana for eight years helping to improve official data and working to make them more accessible and useful. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked for the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Statistical Office of the European Commission. Neil studied statistics and mathematics at University College London, and the Universities of Oxford and Durham.
View video of Neil Fantom's plenary address, "Open Data at the World Bank"
