Computational Social Science: Big Data Analytics as a Means to Understand Human Behavior

Jaideep Srivastava, University of Minnesota, EEUU.

Observation and analysis of a phenomenon at unprecedented levels of granularity not only furthers our understanding of it, but also transforms the way it is studied. For instance, invention of gene-sequencing and computational analysis transformed the life sciences, creating fields of inquiry such as genomics, proteomics, etc.; and the Hubble space telescope has furthered the ability of humanity to look much farther beyond what we could otherwise.

With the mass adoption of the Internet in our daily lives, and the ability to capture high resolution data on its use, we are at the threshold of a fundamental shift not only in our understanding of the social and behavioral sciences (i.e. psychology, sociology, and economics), but also the ways in which we study them. Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and Virtual Worlds (VWs) have become increasingly popular and have communities comprising tens of millions. They serve as unprecedented tools to theorize and empirically model the social and behavioral dynamics of individuals, groups, and networks within large communities.

The preceding observation has led to a number of multi-disciplinary projects, involving teams of behavioral scientists and computational scientists, working together to develop novel methods and tools to explore the current limits of behavioral sciences. This talk consists of four parts. First, we describe findings from the Virtual World Exploratorium; a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary project which uses data from commercial MMOGs and VWs to study many fields of social science, including sociology, social psychology, organization theory, group dynamics, macro-economics, etc. Results from investigations into various behavioral sciences will be presented.

Second, we provide a survey of new approaches for behavioral informatics that are being developed by multi-disciplinary teams, and their successes. We will also introduce novel tools and techniques that are being used and/or developed as part of this research. Third, we will discuss some novel applications that are not yet there, but are just around the corner, and their associated research issues. Finally, we present commercial applications of Game Analytics research, based on our experiences with a startup company that we've created.

Lecture Outline (5 modules of 3 hrs each, 5days x 3 hours/day)

Module 1: Introduction to Social Computing Systems (SoCS); architecture and case studies of a number of social computing systems, e.g. Twitter, FaceBook, FourSquare, MMO games, etc.

Module 2: Introduction to Data Mining & Web Analytics.

Module 3: Introduction to Social Analytics – applying data mining to social computing systems; participants form into project groups to go study a topic.

Module 4: Case studies of social analytics form a number of domains; review of student projects.

Module 5: Student project presentations and discussion; discussion on privacy, ethics, where are we headed, etc.

Bibliography for Srivastava’s Course

1. T. Qian, Q. Li, B. Liu, H. Xiong, J. Srivastava, P. C-Y Sheu, “Topic Formation and Development: A Core-Group Evolving Process,”, The World Wide Web Journal (WWW), pp 1-31, Springer 2013.

2. Zoheb H. Borbora, Muhammad A. Ahmad, Jehwan Oh, Karen T. Haigh, Zhen Wen, “Robust Features of Trust in Social Networks”, accepted for publication in Social Network Analysis and Mining Journal, 2013.

3. Zhen Liu, Jia-Lin He, Jaideep Srivastava, “Correlations Between Community Structure and Link Formation in Complex Networks”, PLOS ONE 8(9), e72908.

4. Young Ae Kim, Muhammah A. Ahmad, J. Srivastava, Soung-Hie Kim, “Role of Computational Trust in Service Science”, Journal of Management Information Systems, Forthcoming, 2012.

5. Loh, Woong-Kee, S. Mane, J. Srivastava, “Mining temporal patterns in popularity of web items”, Information Sciences, 181(22), November 2011, pgs. 5010-5028.

6. Kyong Jin Shim;   Damania, S.;   DeLong, C.;   Srivastava, J., “Player and Team Performance in EverQuest II and Halo 3”, IEEE Potentials, Vol 30, No. 5, pp 21-26, Sep-Oct 2011.

7. Dmitri Williams, Noshir Contractor, Marshall Scott Poole, Jaideep Srivastava, Dora Cai, “The Virtual Worlds Exploratorium: Using Large-Scale Data and Computation Techniques for Communication Research”, Communication Methods and Measures, Vol 5(2), pp 163-180, Taylor and Francis Group, 2011.

8. Shim, K. J., Pathak, N., Ahmad, M. A., DeLong, C., Borbora, Z., Mahapatra, A., Srivastava, J. "Analyzing Human Behavior from Multiplayer Online Game Logs - A Knowledge Discovery Approach," IEEE Intelligent Systems (February 2011 Issue).

9. Brian Keegan, Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Dmitri Williams, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir Contractor. 2011. What can gold farmers teach us about criminal networks? ACM Cross Roads (XRDS) 17, 3 (March 2011), 11-15.

10. Yonghong Tian, Jaideep Srivastava, Tiejun Huang, Noshir Contractor: Social Multimedia Computing, IEEE Computer, 43(8): 27-36 (2010).

11. Nishith Pathak, Sandeep Mane, Jaideep Srivastava: Analysis of Cognitive Social and Knowledge Networks from Electronic Communication, International Journal of Semantic Computing, 1(1), July 2007.

12. Nishith Pathak, Sandeep Mane, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir Contractor, Scott Poole, Dmitri Williams, Analysis of Social Networks and Group Dynamics from Electronic Communication, in Data Mining for Next Generation Challenges and Future Directions, Taylor and Francis Publishers, 2008.

13. J. Oh, Z.H. Borbora, D. Sharma, J. Srivastava, “Bot Detection Based on Social Interactions in MMORPGs”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ASE International Conference on Social Computing, Washington DC, September 8-11, 2013.

14. T. Kennedy, R. Ratan, K. Kapoor, N. Pathak, D. Williams, J. Srivastava, “M or F IRL?: Predicting MMOPlayer Gender from In-Game Attributes Using Machine Learning”, Proceedings of the RWVW Workshop, held in conjunction with IEEE/ASE Conference on Social Computing, Washington DC, September 8-11, 2013.

15. I. Ahmad, A. Mahapatra, M. Scott Poole, J. Srivastava, C. Brown, “Player Typology Based on Longitudinal Game Data”, Proceedings of the RWVW Workshop, held in conjunction with IEEE/ASE Conference on Social Computing, Washington DC, September 8-11, 2013.

16. M. Heller, K. Roots, J. Srivastava, J. Schumann, S. Srivastava, J. Jensen, “Predictive Executive Functioning Models Using Interactive Tangible-Graphical Interface Devices”, poster at the 166th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 18-22, San Francisco, CA, 2013.

17. K. Kapoor, N. Srivastava, P. Schrater, J. Srivastava, “Measuring Spontaneous Devaluations in User Preferences”, Proceedings of the ACM KDD Conference, Chicago, IL, Aug 11-14, 2013.

18. K. Subbian, D. Sharma, Z. Wen, J. Srivastava, “Finding Influencers in Networks Using Social Capital”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Niagra Falls, Canada, Aug 25-28, 2013.

19. M. Ahmad, B. Keegan, A. Roy, D. Williams, J. Srivastava, N. Contractor “Guilt by Association? Network Based Propagation Approaches for Gold Farmer Detection”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Niagra Falls, Canada, Aug 25-28, 2013.

20. A. Singhal, K. Subbian, J. Srivastava, T. Kolda, A. Pinar “Dynamics of Trust Reciprocation in Heterogenous MMOG Networks”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Niagra Falls, Canada, Aug 25-28, 2013.

21. A. Roy, Z. Borbora, J. Srivastava, “Socialization and Trust Formation: A Mutual Reinforcement? An Exploratory Analysis in an Online Virtual Setting”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Niagra Falls, Canada, Aug 25-28, 2013.

22. C. DeLong, L. Terveen, J. Srivastava, “TeamSkill and the NBA: Applying Lessons from the Virtual World to the Real-World”, Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Network Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Niagra Falls, Canada, Aug 25-28, 2013.

23. K. Subbian, D. Sharma, Z. Wen, J. Srivastava, “The Power of Influencers in Social Networks”, International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), St. Paul, MN May 6-10, 2013.

24. C. Aggarwal, K. Subbian, J. Srivastava, P. S. Yu, “Community Detection with Prior Knowledge”, Proceedings of the SIAM Data Mining Conference (SDM), Austin, TX, May 2013.

25. A. Leung, W. Dron, J.P. Hancock, M. Aguirre, J. Purnell, J. Han, C. Wang, J. Srivastava, A. Mahapatra, A. Roy, L. Scott, “Social Patterns: Community Detection Using Behavior-Generated Network Datasets,”, Proceedings of the IEEE Network Science Workshop (NSW), pp 82-89, April 2013, USMA West Point, NY.

26. K. Kapoor, D. Sharma, J. Srivastava, “Weighted Node Degree Centrality for Hypergraphs,” Proceedings of the IEEE Network Science Workshop (NSW), pp 152-155, April 2013, USMA West Point, NY.

27. Zoheb H. Borbora, J. Srivastava, “User Behavior Modeling Approach for Churn Prediction in Online Games”, IEEE Social Computing, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 3-6, 2012. (Best Paper Award)

28. Atanu Roy, Muhammad A. Ahmad, Chandrima Sarkar, Biran Keegan, J. Srivastava, “The Ones That Got Away: False Negative Estimation Based Approaches for Gold Farmer Detection”, IEEE Social Computing, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 3-6, 2012.

29. Nishith Pathak, J. Srivastava, “Analyzing Network Motif Signatures in Large Scale Social Network Data”, Sunbelt XXXII Conference on Social Networks, CA March 12-18, 2012.

30. Brooke Foucault Welles, Komal Kapoor, Rabindra Ratan, Tracy Kennedy, Kyong Jin Shim, Noshir Contractor, Jaideep Srivastava, & Dmitri Williams, “The Predictive Value of Networks: Using Social Network Information to Improve the Performance of Age Prediction Algorithms for Massively Multiplayer Online Games”, Sunbelt XXXII Conference on Social Networks, Redondo Beach, CA March 12-18, 2012.

31. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Zoheb Borbora, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir S. Contractor, “Love All, Trust a Few: Link Prediction for Trust and Psycho-social Factors in MMOs”. SBP 2012:123-130.

32. Muhammad A. Ahmad, Jaideep Srivastava, et al, “The Generalizer's Dilemma: How Social Network in MMOG's are different from ''Normal'' Social Networks”, Sunbelt XXXII Conference on Social Networks, Redondo Beach, CA March 12-18, 2012.

33. Zoheb H. Borbora, Muhammad A. Ahmad, Jaideep Srivastava, Karen Haig, “Robust features for link prediction in MMOGs”, Sunbelt XXXII Conference on Social Networks, Redondo Beach, CA March 12-18, 2012.

34. Colin DeLong, Jaideep Srivastava, “TeamSkill Evolved: Mixed Classification Schemes for Team-Based Multi-Player Games”, PAKDD 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 2012.

35. Tieyun Qian, Qing Li, Jaideep Srivastava, “A Framework for Evaluating Network Measures for Functional Importance”, Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on the World Wide Web, pp 109-110, Hyderabad, India 2011.

36. Zoheb Borbora, Kuo-Wei Hsu, Jaideep Srivastava, Dmitri Williams,”Churn Prediction in MMORPGs using player motivation theories and ensemble approach”, IEEE SocialCom 2011 Boston, MA October 9-11, 2011.

37. Kyong Jin Shim, Kuo-Wei Hsu, Jaideep Srivastava, An Exploratory Study of Player Performance, Motivation, and Enjoyment in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, IEEE SocialCom 2011 Boston, MA October 9-11, 2011.

38. Muhammad Ahmad, Iftekhar Ahmad, Jaideep Srivastava, Marshall Poole, Trust me, I am an Expert: Trust, Homophily and Expertise in MMOs, IEEE SocialCom 2011 Boston, MA October 9-11, 2011.

39. Kyong Jin Shim, Kuo-Wei Hsu, Samarth Damania, Colin DeLong, Jaideep Srivastava, An Exploratory Study of Player and Team Performance in Multiplayer First-Person-Shooter Games, IEEE SocialCom 2011 Boston, MA October 9-11, 2011.

40. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad,  Brian Keegan,  Sophia Sullivan,  Dmitri Williams,  Jaideep Srivastava,  Noshir Contractor, Illicit Bits: Detecting and Analyzing Contraband Networks in Massively Multiplayer Online Games, IEEE SocialCom 2011 Boston, MA October 9-11, 2011.

41. Zoheb Borbora, Muhammad Ahmad, Karen Haigh, Jaideep Srivastava and Zhen Wen, Exploration of Robust Features of Trust Across Multiple Social Networks, Workshop on Trustworthy Self-Organising Systems (TSOS) 2011 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

42. Muhammad Ahmad, Zoheb Borbora, Cindy Shen, Jaideep Srivastava and Dmitri Williams, Guilds Play in MMOGs: Rethinking Common Group Dynamics Models, 3rd International Conference on Social Informatics, October 6-8, 2011, Singapore.

43. Shim, K. J., Hsu, K. W., Srivastava, J. "Effects of Mentoring on Player Performance in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)," The 2011 International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, July 25-27, 2011.

44. Shim, K. J., Hsu, K. W., Srivastava, J. "Modeling Player Performance in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: The Effects of Diversity in Mentoring Network," The 2011 International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, July 25-27, 2011.

45. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Marshall Scott Poole, Jaideep Srivastava “The Trust Propensity Prediction Problem” ” The Third ACM WebSci Conference, Koblenz, Germany June 14-17, 2011.

46. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Jaideep Srivastava “Models of Social Capital for Predicting Success in MMOs” The Third ACM WebSci Conference, Koblenz, Germany June 14-17, 2011.

47. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Jaideep Srivastava “Item Recommendations in Multiple Overlapping Social Networks in MMOs” The Third ACM WebSci Conference, Koblenz, Germany June 14-17, 2011.

48. Brian Keegan, Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Dmitri Williams, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir Contractor. “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi Virtuali? Promise and Peril at the Intersection of Computational Social Science and Online Clandestine Organizations” The Third ACM WebSci Conference, Koblenz, Germany June 14-17, 2011. (Best Paper Award)

49. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Brian Keegan, Dmitri Williams, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir Contractor. (2011). “Trust Amongst Rogues? A Hypergraph Approach for Comparing Clandestine Trust Networks in MMOGs.” 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM-11).

50. Colin DeLong, N. Pathak,, K. Ericson, E. Perrino, K.J. Shim, J. Srivastava, TeamSkill: Modeling Team Chemistry in Online Multiplayer Games, PAKDD Conference, May 24-27, 2011, Shenzen, China.

51. Foucault Welles, B., Shim, K.J., Ratan, R.A., Kennedy, T. L. M., Rousse, T.H., Contractor, N., Srivastava, J., Williams, D. (2011). Disambiguating Age, Gender and Skill: An Exploration of Online Chat Among MMOG Players. Paper presented at 2011 International Sunbelt Social Network Conference (XXXI).

52. Keegan, B., Ahmad, M., Williams, D., Srivastava, J., Contractor, N. (2011). Using ERGMs to Map Online Clandestine Behavior to Offline Criminal Activity. Paper presented at 2011 International Sunbelt Social Network Conference (XXXI).

53. Keegan, B., Ahmad, M., Williams, D., Srivastava, J., Contractor, N. (2011). Mapping Gold Farming Back to Offline Clandestine Organizations: Methodological, Theoretical, and Ethical Challenges. Paper to be presented at The Game Behind the Video Game: Business, Regulation, and Society in the Gaming Industry, April 8-9, 2011, New Brunswick, NJ. (Best paper award)

54. K. J. Shim and J. Srivastava, "Sequence Alignment Based Analysis of Player Behavior in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)", in the Domain Driven Data Mining Workshop (DDDM2010) in conjunction with ICDM 2010, Sydney, Australia, December 2010.

55. Brian Keegan, Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Dmitri Williams, Jaideep Srivastava, Noshir Contractor, “Dark Gold: Statistical Properties of Clandestine Networks in Massively-Muliplayer Online Games”, IEEE Social Computing Conference (SocialCom-10) Minneapolis, MN, USA, August 20-22, 2010.

56. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, David Huffaker, Jing Wang, Jeff Treem, Dinesh Kumar, Marshall Scott Poole, Jaideep Srivastava, “The Many Faces of Mentoring in an MMORPG”, IEEE Social Computing (SocialCom-10). Workshop on Social Intelligence in Applied Gaming. Minneapolis, MN, USA, August 20-22, 2010.

57. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, Marshall Scott Poole, Jaideep Srivastava, “Network Exchange in Trust Networks” IEEE Social Computing (SocialCom-10). Workshop on Social Intelligence in Applied Gaming. Minneapolis, MN, USA, August 20-22, 2010.

58. Kyong Jin Shim, Jaideep Srivastava. "Behavioral Profiles of Character Types in EverQuest II", IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games 2010.

59. Kyong Jin Shim, Jaideep Srivastava. "Team Performance Prediction in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)", IEEE Social Computing 2010.

60. Muhammad Ahmad, Marshall Scott Poole, David Huffakar, Annie Wang, Jeff Treem, Jaideep Srivastava, “GTPA: A Generative Model for Online Mentor-Apprentice Networks", Proceedings of the Special Track on AI & the Web (AIW) at the Twenty-Fourth  AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-10) to be held July 11 – 15, 2010, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

61. Kyong Jin Shim, Richa Sharan, Jaideep Srivastava, “Player Performance Prediction in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)”, Proceedings of the PAKDD Conference, Hyderabad, India, June 21-24, 2010.

62. M. A. Ahmad, B. Keegan, J. Srivastava, D. Williams, N. Contractor, "Mining for Gold Farmers: Automatic Detection of Deviant Players in MMOGs", Proceedings of the SIN09 Workshop, in conjunction with the IEEE Social Computing Conference, Vancouver, BC, August 29-31, 2009.

63. J. Kawale, A. Pal, J. Srivastava, "Churn Prediction in MMORPGs: A Social Influence Based Approach", Proceedings of the SIN09 Workshop, in conjunction with the IEEE Social Computing Conference, Vancouver, BC, August 29-31, 2009.

64. K.J. Shim, M.A. Ahmad, N. Pathak, J. Srivastava, "Inferring Player Rating from Performance Data in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)", Proceedings of the SIAG09 Workshop, in conjunction with the IEEE Social Computing Conference, Vancouver, BC, August 29-31, 2009.

65. D. Williams, N. Contractor, S. Poole, J. Srivastava, Networks, Gold and Code: New Findings from the Virtual World Exploratorium Project, Proceedings of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference 5.0, June 10-12, 2009, Madison, WI.

66. Ahmad M., Pathak, N., Ramakrishnan, R., Srivastava J., Social Network Based Churn Analysis in a Virtual World, Paper presented at International Sunbelt Social Network Conference (XXIX), San Diego, CA. March 14 2009.

67. Kim, Y., Ahmad, M. Srivastava J., A Technique for Inferring Trust in Recommendation Systems, Paper presented at International Sunbelt Social Network Conference (XXIX), San Diego, CA. March 14 2009.

68. D. Williams, N. Contractor, S. Poole, J. Srivastava, M. Consalvo, S. Caplan, N. Yee, T. Kennedy, B. Moore, The Virtual World Exploratorium Project: Initial Findings & Future Directions, Proceedings of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Conference 4.0, July 9-11, 2008, Madison, WI.

69. Nishith Pathak, Muhammad Ahmad, David Kuo-Wei Hsu, Youngae Kim, Jaideep Srivastava, Computational models for inferring trust, social capital and efficiently tracking community evolution in a virtual world, Proceedings of the 94th Annual Convention of the National Communication Association (NCA), November 21-24, 2008, San Diego, CA.

70. Haifeng Liu, Ee-Peng Lim, Hady W.  Lauw, Minh-Tam Le, Aixin Sun, Jaideep  Srivastava, Young Ae  Kim, Predicting Trusts among Users of Online Communities  - an Epinions Case Study. ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, July 8-12, 2008, Chicago, IL.

71. Young Ae Kim, Hady W. Lauw, Ee-Peng Lim, Jaideep Srivastava: Building a Web of Trust without Explicit Trust Ratings. IEEE ICDE Workshop on Data Engineering for Blogs Social Media and Web 2.0, April 12th, 2008, Cancun, Mexico.

72. Young Ae Kim, Jaideep Srivastava: Impact of social influence in e-commerce decision making. Proceedings of the International Conference on E-Commerce (ICEC) 2007, pp 293-302.

73. H. Liu, Z.-L. Zhang, J. Srivastava, V. Fiorou, Pwave: A Multi-source Multi-sink Anycast Routing Framework for Wireless Sensor Networks, Procedings of the IFIP/TC6 NETWORKING 2007 Conference.

Jaideep Srivastava is an educator, entrepreneur, thought leader, and adviser, who is much sought after for his experience and advice by the scientific community, industry, and governments. He is Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he directs a laboratory focusing on research in Web Mining, Social Media Analytics, and Health Analytics. He has authored over 325 papers, filed 8 patents, and supervised 32 PhD dissertations and 60 MS theses. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), has been an IEEE Distinguished Visitor, and is a Distinguished Fellow of Allina’s Center for Healthcare Innovation. His research has received 6 best paper awards, and he has been awarded the Distinguished Research Contributions Award of the PAKDD, for his lifetime contributions to the field of data mining. Dr. Srivastava is currently co-leading a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary project in the rapidly emerging area of social computing (http://vwobservatory.com/). His research has been supported by a broad range of government agencies, including NSF, NASA, ARDA, DARPA, IARPA, NIH, CDC, US Army, US Air Force, and MNDoT; and industries, including IBM, United Technologies, Eaton, Honeywell, and Cargill. He has an active collaboration with Allina Health. Dr. Srivastava has extensive experience in the industry, in both consulting and executive roles. He has been the Data Mining Architect at Amazon.com (www.amazon.com), leading a data mining team; the Director of Data Analytics at Yodlee (www.yodlee.com), building a new department – including personnel platform and product offering; served as the Chief Technology Officer for Persistent Systems (www.persistentsys.com), interfacing with major clients in the US, as well as establishing the culture and structures for the CTO organization. He has provided technology and strategy advice to Cargill, United Technologies, IBM, Honeywell, KPMG, 3M, TCS, and Eaton. Dr. Srivastava is the Co-Founder and CTO of Ninja Metrics (www.ninjametrics.com), which brings his research in social analytics to the commercial world, and is Adviser and Chief Scientist of CogCubed (www.cogcubed.com), an innovative company whose goal is to revolutionize the diagnosis and therapy of cognitive disorders through the use of games with a purpose (GWAP). He is an adviser to the mobile e-commerce company ShopPerk (www.shopperk.com), which has introduced a disruptive approach to grocery shopping, and to LeadId (www.leadid.com), that has created an integrated platform for managing, tracking, and qualifying customer leads across the Internet. Dr. Srivastava has held distinguished professorships at multiple international universities. He has held advisory positions with the State of Minnesota, and with the State of Maharashtra, India. He is a technology advisor to the Unique ID (UID) project of the Government of India, whose goal is to provide biometrics-based social security numbers to its 1.2 billion citizens. Dr. Srivastava has delivered over 180 invited talks in over 30 countries, including more than 20 keynote addresses at major international conferences. He has a Bachelors of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India, and MS and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.