The Sweeney Agency

About David Orrell - Speaker and Author on the Economy and Mathematician:

David Orrell is a speaker, writer and mathematician. His books, published in eight countries, include the best-seller Apollo’s Arrow: The Science of Prediction and the Future of Everything; Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong; and Introducing Economics (with graphics by Borin Van Loon). He also writes research papers on topics ranging from systems biology to systems economics, and articles for publications such as Adbusters, Literary Review of Canada, and World Finance. He has been a guest on many radio and TV shows, including CBC’s The National, and Lang and O’Leary Exchange.

David studied mathematics at the University of Alberta, and obtained his doctorate in the prediction of nonlinear systems from the University of Oxford. His work in applied mathematics has taken him to diverse areas including weather forecasting, economics, and cancer biology. He now works as an independent consultant. His talks have informed and entertained audiences at a variety of events, including the Art Center Global Dialogues on Disruptive Thinking in Barcelona, Agri Vision in the Netherlands, the International Symposium on Forecasting in San Diego, and the World Technology Summit in New York.

What David Orrell Talks About:

We seem to have a genetic urge to look into the future, to see around the corner, to guess what is coming next. Traditionally the domain of religions, astrologers, or mystics, we now rely on sophisticated mathematical models to predict the weather, the spread of diseases, the economy, and much else. But despite huge investments in manpower and technology, we still find it hard to predict complex systems – as our recent difficulties with climate change, the swine flu pandemic, or the credit crunch have shown. David Orrell gives a fascinating and entertaining overview of the history and the challenges of prediction, from the oracle at Delphi, to the latest methods from complexity research, and shows how forecasting models often say as much about ourselves as they do about the future.