Rajendra Akerkar holds master’s in applied mathematics and doctorate in computer science. He is a professor of Information Technology at Vestlansforsking (Western Norway Research Institute), Norway. He leads big data research group at the institute. His research and teaching experience, in artificial intelligence and related subjects, includes over 26 years in the Academia spanning universities in Asia, Europe and North America. Rajendra received prestigious BOYSCASTS Young Scientist award of Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, in 1997. He was UNESCO-TWAS Associate Professor from 1998-2001. He is an editor-in-chief of International Journal of Computer Science & Applications, and also an associate editor of International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies and Knowledge Management Track Editor of Web Intelligence, an international journal. His research focuses on application of big data methods to business challenges, and social media analysis in a wide set of semantic dimensions. He currently coordinating projects funded by Research Council of Norway and EU-funded Horizon 2020 programme. He is actively involved in several international ICT initiatives for more than 21 years.