Robert Cohen - Fellow

AREAS OF EXPERTISE: Telecommunications Industry, Technology Policy

Robert Cohen is an economist who has analyzed how the emergence of cloud computing, the Internet of Things, machine learning and AI have affected firms’ use of technology and its impact on the economy. He directs the Economic Strategy Institute's project on the economic impact of Cloud Computing, IoT, AI, and ML on the U.S. economy. The project won a Cisco university grant as well as support from IMA, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Berggruen Foundation, Brocade and the OECD. Dr. Cohen has served on the Steering Committee of the Global Grid Forum and directed TM Forum’s Enterprise Cloud Leadership Council. He has been actively involved in IoT related events such as the IoT Slam conferences. He has also spoken on Cloud computing and AI at O’Reilly Strata conferences, Linux Foundation’s Open Networking Summit North America, and a succession of Cloud Expo and Big Data conferences. Firms such as Intel, IBM, Corning, Sun, and Juniper Networks have funded his work on the impact of grid computing and broadband communications on the US economy that ESI has published. Dr. Cohen co-founded the New York part of the academic Internet, NYSERNet, and is a founding member of the Internet Society. He holds a BA from Swarthmore College and a PhD from the New School for Social Research. He is the author or co-author of five books.