Swanson speaks to a technology audience in Melbourne, Australia, May 20, 2009. (photo: amezakura, (c) FTTH Council Asia Pacific, 2009)

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Bret Swanson is president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic insight firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy; president of Entropy Capital, a firm that invests in both public companies and private technology ventures; and a visiting fellow at Digital Society.

He was previously a senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation, where he directed the Center for Global Innovation, and before that advised technology investors for eight years as executive editor of the Gilder Technology Report.

Swanson presents his research on the growth of the Internet around the globe and often writes for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.com on topics ranging from communications bandwidth to globalization to monetary policy. He blogs at Maximum Entropy (bretswanson.com) and is also a member of the Technology Liberation Front group blog. He is a trustee of both the Indiana Teachers’ and Public Employees’ Retirement Funds.

Among other research, he has presented a new theory of the economic rise of China; projected an “exaflood” of Web video, leading to an estimated 56% compound annual growth of Internet traffic through the year 2015; exposed the deep monetary errors behind the crashes of both 2000 and 2008; and advanced a new concept linking information theory and entrepreneurial economics.

Swanson began his career as an aide to Sen. Richard Lugar and then as an economic analyst for former Rep. Jack Kemp. He studied economics at Princeton University and now lives in Zionsville, Indiana, with his wife and four children.