Don Tapscott

Don Tapscott (born June 1, 1947) is a Canadian business executive, author, consultant and speaker, specializing in business strategy, organizational transformation and the role of technology in business and society. He is CEO of The Tapscott Group, and was founder and chairman of the international think tank New Paradigm before its acquisition. He is Vice Chair of Spencer Trask Collaborative Innovations, a new company building a portfolio of companies in the collaboration and social media space. In World Business Forum 2013, Tapscott stated that today the Internet provides access to real-time global intelligence and described the four strategies that rules today’s leadership: the technological revolution, the Net Generation, and the economic and social revolution. In 2012, Tapscott opened TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, where his talk, 4 Principles for the Open World, was viewed by more than 500,000 people online. In 2013, Thinkers50 awarded Tapscott the Global Solutions Award for launching and leading the Global Solution Networks program at the Martin Prosperity Institute. This program is investigating how the digital revolution enables new models of global problem solving, cooperation and governance. Thinkers50, a list of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world, listed Tapscott as the fourth-most influential management thinker alive. In 2011, Tapscott was ninth on the list. Tapscott has authored or co-authored fifteen books on the application of technology in business and society. His most recent, Macrowikinomic: New Solutions for a Connected Planet (revised paperback, 2012), co-authored by Anthony D. Williams, was originally released in September 2010. Macrowikinomics has been recognized by the Thinkers50 2011 Best Book shortlist, 2012 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, and 2010 Financial Times Best Book nominations. His 2006 book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (2006), co-authored by Anthony D. Williams, was an international bestseller, was number 1 on the 2007 management book charts, and was translated into 20 languages. Tapscott lives in Toronto. He has been appointed the Chancellor of his alma mater, Trent University. Tapscott is also Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and a member of the World Economic Forum, an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Tapscott holds a B.Sc. in Psychology and Statistics, and an M.Ed. specializing in Research Methodology. He also holds three honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), granted by the University of Alberta in 2001, Trent University in 2006, and McMaster University in 2010. While earning his Master’s of Education at the University of Alberta, he ran for mayor of Edmonton in the 1977 municipal election as the candidate of the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvri re R volutionnaire, a Trotskyist party. Tapscott’s other well-known books include: Paradigm Shift (1992); The Digital Economy (1996); Growing Up Digital (1998); Digital Capital (2000); The Naked Corporation (2003); and Grown Up Digital (2008). Tapscott was born in Toronto, Ontario a lived as a teen in Orillia, Ontario where he was in the first graduating class of Park Street Collegiate Institute.