César Hidalgo

Hidalgo was born in Santiago de Chile in 1979 to Cesar E. Hidalgo and Nuria Ramaciotti. His father was a publicist and journalist and his mother a K-12 school administrator. He has two siblings Caterina and Nuria.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

Hidalgo attended The Grange School until the age of fourteen. He completed his high school education at The British High School. From 1998 to 2003 he studied physics at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. From 2004 to 2008 he obtained a PhD in physics from The University of Notre Dame with Albert-László Barabási as his PhD advisor. From 2008 to 2010 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

During his PhD Hidalgo began using networks to study economic development. Two key contributions here include The Product Space,{{Cite journal |last1=Hidalgo |first1=C. A. |last2=Klinger |first2=B. |last3=Barabási |first3=A.-L. |last4=Hausmann |first4=R. |date=2007-07-27 |title=The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1144581 |journal=Science |volume=317 |issue=5837 |pages=482–487 |doi=10.1126/science.1144581 |pmid=17656717 |issn=0036-8075|arxiv=0708.2090 |bibcode=2007Sci...317..482H |s2cid=13194935 }} a network that can be used to explain and predict the activities an economy is more likely to enter an exit, and the economic complexity index,{{Cite journal |last1=Hidalgo |first1=César A. |last2=Hausmann |first2=Ricardo |date=2009-06-30 |title=The building blocks of economic complexity |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |language=en |volume=106 |issue=26 |pages=10570–10575 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0900943106 |issn=0027-8424 |pmc=705545 |pmid=19549871|arxiv=0909.3890 |bibcode=2009PNAS..10610570H |doi-access=free }} a dimensionality reduction based formula that can be used to explain differences in economic growth, inequality, and emissions. The economic complexity index is a highly reproducible predictor of future economic growth and also is a strong explanatory factor of cross-national differences in income inequality and emission intensities.{{Cite journal|date=2017-05-01|title=Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions, and Income Inequality|journal=World Development|language=en|volume=93|pages=75–93|doi=10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.12.020|issn=0305-750X|arxiv=1505.07907|last1=Hartmann|first1=Dominik|last2=Guevara|first2=Miguel R.|last3=Jara-Figueroa|first3=Cristian|last4=Aristarán|first4=Manuel|last5=Hidalgo|first5=César A.|s2cid=45386522}} Hidalgo's work in Economic Complexity has been covered by important media outlets like The New York Times,{{Cite web |last=Harford |first=Tim |date=2011-05-11 |title=The Art of Economic Complexity |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/15/magazine/art-of-economic-complexity.html?_r=0 |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=The New York Times}} The Economist,{{Cite news |date=2010-02-04 |title=Diversity training |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2010/02/04/diversity-training |access-date=2022-06-08 |issn=0013-0613}} and The Financial Times.{{Cite web |date=2007-08-18 |title=Milton Friedman, meet Richard Feynman |url=https://timharford.com/2007/08/milton-friedman-meet-richard-feynman/ |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=Tim Harford |language=en-GB}}

In Why Information Grows Hidalgo explains economic growth as a consequence of the growth of information and computation in the universe. The book starts by explaining the physical mechanisms that allow information to grow, and then unpacks these mechanisms in the context of social and economic systems. The main argument of the book is that the need for computation to be embodied, in cells, humans, or teams of humans, is what makes the growth of information in the economy both possible and difficult.

Soon after its release the book was highly praised by economists including Paul Romer,{{Cite web |date=2015-07-08 |title=Why Information Grows |url=https://paulromer.net/why-information-grows/ |access-date= |website=Paul Romer}} who a couple of years later won the Nobel prize for endogenous growth theory, Eric Beinhoecker,{{Cite news |last=Beinhoecker |first=Eric |date=2015-06-12 |title='Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies', by César Hidalgo |work=Financial Times |url=https://www.ft.com/content/36cad2c0-1038-11e5-ad5a-00144feabdc0 |access-date=2022-06-08}} the director of Oxford's Institute for New Economic Thinking, and Tim Harford,{{Cite web |date=2015-06-23 |title=Teamwork gives us added personbyte |url=https://timharford.com/2015/06/teamwork-gives-us-added-personbyte/ |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=Tim Harford |language=en-GB}} a popular economics author and regular columnist for The Financial Times. Why Information Grows was also featured in The Economist's books and arts section of the July 25, 2015 print edition,{{Cite news |date=2015-07-23 |title=Multiplier effects |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2015/07/23/multiplier-effects |access-date=2022-06-08 |issn=0013-0613}} in Nature's May 28, 2015 print edition,{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1038/521420a|title = Information theory: Knowledge and know-how|journal = Nature|volume = 521|issue = 7553|pages = 420–421|year = 2015|last1 = Ball|first1 = Philip|bibcode = 2015Natur.521..420B|doi-access = free}} and Kirkus Reviews,{{Cite web |title=WHY INFORMATION GROWS by César Hidalgo |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cesar-hidalgo/why-information-grows/ |website=Kirkus Reviews}} among others.

Hidalgo has co-authored a number of popular data visualization and distribution platforms. These are tools that make available vast volumes of data through visualizations. These platforms include:

The OEC is a tool that makes available international trade data through millions of visualizations. The Observatory of Economic Complexity focuses on the mix of products that countries export because this product mix is predictive of a country's future patterns of diversification, G.D.P. growth, and income inequality. The OEC was co-authored with Alex Simões, who developed this platform as his master’s thesis in the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab. Today, the OEC is developed by Datawheel LLC, a company co-founded by Hidalgo and Simões together with David Landry.

DataViva is a visualization engine that makes available regional development data for all of Brazil through more than 1 billion visualizations.{{Cite web |last=Howard |first=Alexander |date=2015-06-18 |title=Brazilian Data Visualization Platform Brings Numbers To Life, Aims To Make Traditional Reports 'Obsolete' |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dataviva-open-data_n_7604912 |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Ferro |first=Shaunacy |date=2013-12-04 |title=New MIT Media Lab Tool Lets Anyone Visualize Unwieldy Government Data |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/3022701/new-mit-media-lab-tool-lets-anyone-visualize-unwieldy-government-data |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=Fast Company |language=en-US}} These visualizations include trade data, employment data and education data, for each of Brazil's more than 5000 municipalities and its hundreds of products, industries and occupations. DataViva was developed in a collaboration between Hidalgo, Alex Simões and Dave Landry, and the government of Minas Gerais in Brazil, including Minas's government department of strategic priorities and FAPEMIG, Minas Science funding agency.

DataUSA visualizes and distributes public data for the United States. It was launched on April 4, 2016 and acclaimed by The New York Times,{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/technology/datausa-government-data.html|title=Website Seeks to Make Government Data Easier to Sift Through|first=Steve|last=Lohr|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 4, 2016}} The Atlantic's City Lab,{{Cite news |last=Misra |first=Tanvi |date=4 April 2016 |title=The One-Stop Digital Shop for Digestible Data on Your City |newspaper=Bloomberg |url=http://www.citylab.com/tech/2016/04/this-new-data-tool-brings-city-data-to-the-surface/476661/}} and Fast Company.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/3058589/how-an-mit-data-viz-guru-is-cracking-open-cryptic-government-data|title=How An MIT Data Viz Guru Is Exposing Cryptic Government Data|first=John|last=Brownlee|date=April 5, 2016|website=Fast Company}} DataUSA received the Information is Beautiful Award in 2016 and a Webby Award in 2017 for best Civil and Government Innovation. DataUSA was built by Datawheel in collaboration with Deloitte.

DataAfrica makes available data on the health, poverty, agriculture, and climate, of thirteen African countries at the subnational level. DataAfrica won a 2018 webby award for best civil and government innovation.

DataChile integrates and distributes data from more than a dozen Chilean government departments. It won a 2018 Indigo Design Award.

DataMexico is a systematized information platform with more than 13,000 profiles about regional economy, infrastructure, exterior commerce, employment, education, gender equity, inequality, health, and public security in Mexico. Includes a section about Economic Complexity to visualize development opportunities through dynamics between industries and products.

Immersion is a data visualization engine for email metadata. Immersion helps uncover the networks people form while interacting through email. Immersion was co-authored by Hidalgo together with Daniel Smilkov and Deepak Jagsdish, while both Smilkov and Jagdish were working as students in Hidalgo's Macro Connections group. Immersion was released in 2013, and quickly became popular as a way to demonstrate what people can learn by looking only at email metadata.{{Cite web |last=Hill |first=Kashmir |date=2013-07-10 |title=Here's A Tool To See What Your Email Metadata Reveals About You |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/10/heres-a-tool-to-see-what-your-email-metadata-reveals-about-you/ |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=Forbes |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Abramson |first=Larry |date=2013-08-22 |title=How A Look At Your Gmail Reveals The Power Of Metadata |url=https://text.npr.org/214172709 |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=NPR}}{{Cite web |last=Riesman |first=Abraham |date=2013-06-30 |title=What your metadata says about you |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/06/29/what-your-metadata-says-about-you/SZbsH6c8tiKtdCxTdl5TWM/story.html |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=The Boston Globe |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Subbaraman |first=Nidhi |date=2013-07-08 |title=Take a peek at your email metadata ... before the feds do |url=http://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/take-peek-your-email-metadata-feds-do-6C10569544 |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=NBC News |language=en}}

Immersion was then rebuilt and expanded by Jingxian Zhang during her master's thesis work in Hidalgo's group at the MIT Media Lab to create [https://github.com/CenterForCollectiveLearning/OpenTeams Open Teams], a visualization suite for communication data designed for teams.

Pantheon{{Cite web |title=Pantheon - Mapping Historical Cultural Production |url=http://pantheon.media.mit.edu/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330043133/http://pantheon.media.mit.edu/ |archive-date=2019-03-30 |access-date=2019-11-19}} is a data visualization engine focused on historical cultural production and impact. Pantheon helps users explore metadata on globally famous biographies as a means to understand the process of collective memory and of the role of languages and communication technologies in the production and diffusion of cultural information. Amy Yu, Kevin Hu, and Cesar Hidalgo developed pantheon in the Macro Connections group at MIT.{{Cite news |last=Garner |first=Dwight |date=2014-03-14 |title=Who's More Famous Than Jesus? |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/whos-more-famous-than-jesus.html |access-date=2022-06-08 |issn=0362-4331}}{{cite web|last=Rhodes|first=Margaret|title=MIT Media Lab Maps History's Biggest Celebrities|magazine=Fast Company|date=March 25, 2014|url=http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027817/mit-media-lab-maps-historys-biggest-celebrities}}

[https://rankless.org Rankless] is a data visualization platform that allows people to explore the publication impact of countries, universities, journals, and scholars. Unlike other academic impact projects, Rankless skews away from the concept of rankings by showing impact that is specific to topics and geographies. Rankless was developed by Endre Borza, an economist and data scientist, working in Hidalgo's Center for Collective Learning at Corvinus University of Budapest.

Place Pulse, Streetscore, and Streetchange are tools created to map people's perceptions of urban environments. Place Pulse has been featured in The Guardian{{Cite web |last=Rose |first=Steve |date=2011-08-19 |title=Place Pulse: a new website rates city safety |url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/19/place-pulse-website-city-safety |access-date=2022-06-08 |website=the Guardian |language=en}} and Fast Company.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/1664885/mits-place-pulse-a-hot-or-not-for-cities-to-fix-broken-blocks|title=MIT's Place Pulse: A "Hot Or Not" For Cities, To Fix Broken Blocks|first=Suzanne|last=LaBarre|date=November 22, 2013|website=Fast Company}} Streetscore has been featured in The Economist{{Cite news |last=B. |first=N. |date=August 29, 2014 |title=How to find safe streets |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2014/08/29/how-to-find-safe-streets}} and New Scientist,{{Cite web |last=Hodson |first=Hal |date=2014-06-18 |title=Spot-the-difference software maps city's mean streets |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229744-100-spot-the-difference-software-maps-citys-mean-streets/ |website=New Scientist}} among others.

In 2018, Hidalgo presented at TED's main event the idea of Augmented Democracy:{{cite web |title=Augmented Democracy |url=http://peopledemocracy.com |website=Augmented Democracy |access-date=24 June 2023}} a democracy in which people are represented directly by personalized digital twins powered by artificial intelligence. He has since engaged in the creation of civic participation platforms, such as [http://monprogramme2022.org/ MonProgramme2022] and [https://brazucracia.org Brazucracia], designed to collect people's preference over dozens of policy issues.

{{Wikiquote}}A full list of books and publications can be found in [http://chidalgo.com Cesar Hidalgo's professional page]

• ’’How Humans Judge Machines’’ MIT Press (2021), {{ISBN|9780262045520}}
• ‘’Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order from Atoms to Economies’’ Basic Books, New York (2015) {{ISBN|978-0465048991}}
• ’’The Atlas of Economic Complexity’’ MIT Press (2014), {{ISBN|9780262525428}}

• "Links that speak: The Global Language Network and its Association with Global Fame" Shahar Ronen, Bruno Goncalves, Kevin Hu, Alessandro Vespignani, Steven Pinker and César A. Hidalgo. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.1410931111 (2014)
• "The Collaborative Image of the City: Mapping the Inequality of Urban Perception" Philip Salesses, Katja Schechtner, and César A. Hidalgo. PLoS ONE 8(7): e68400. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068400
• "The Network Structure of Economic Output" R Hausmann, CA Hidalgo. Journal of Economic Growth (2011) 16:309–342 DOI 10.1007/s10997-011-9071-4
• "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity" CA Hidalgo, R Hausmann. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (2009) 106(26):10570-10575
• "Understanding Individual Human Mobility Patterns" MC Gonzalez, CA Hidalgo, A-L Barabási. Nature (2008) 453: 779–782
• "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations" CA Hidalgo, B Klinger, A-L Barabási, R Hausmann. Science (2007) 317: 482–487

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