Eric Schmidt

Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Media (2012-2013)

The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Media is one of the highlights in its field at the University of Cambridge. Ambitious in its scope, the initiative holds Visiting Professorships that bring individuals of outstanding practical and academic expertise to give students, scholars, and members of the general public unique insight into the complex and fascinating role the media plays in global society

The Visiting Professorship in Media has been made possible by the generous support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and is hosted by St John’s College, Cambridge.

Eric Schmidt is the Executive Chairman of Google Inc.

Schmidt’s first lecture, The Next 5 Billion: Life in Our New Connected Age, began by introducing the fact that only 2 of the planet’s 7 billion people are currently ‘connected’. Schmidt posited that the next few years will see the remaining 5 billion join us in the connected world and that at every level of society, connectivity will continue to become more affordable and will be beneficial to overall quality of life, especially in the developing world.

The second lecture, The Future of Identity, Citizenship, and Reporting, examined how the fundamental idea of ‘identity’ is undergoing a radical transformation in the virtual world. The more connected a community is, the more the citizenry can use the virtual world to hold governments accountable for crimes and corruption. People, Schmidt asserted, will be able to protect one another by connecting with each other.

In his final lecture, The Future of Conflict, Combat, and Intervention, Schmidt looked at how connectivity and the virtual world will also affect military matters, creating a rise in remote warfare. Schmidt asserted that the advances in remote warfare would lead to an increase of small military skirmishes but a decrease of actual war.