--- title: "About Mario Brcic" author: "Mario Brcic" author_url: "https://mariobrcic.com/about-me/" canonical_url: "https://mariobrcic.com/about-me/" summary: "Associate Professor at FER (University of Zagreb), Managing Partner at It From Bit. Builds Strategy Engines for wicked, high-stakes decisions." license: "all-rights-reserved" --- > *Canonical HTML version: [https://mariobrcic.com/about-me/](https://mariobrcic.com/about-me/). © Mario Brcic. All rights reserved.* # About Mario Brcic Mario Brcic builds Strategy Engines — computational systems that solve wicked, high-stakes strategic problems under uncertainty. Associate Professor at FER (University of Zagreb), where he researches the formal limits of strategic AI, and Managing Partner at It From Bit. Author of the Cognitive Sovereignty trilogy on value alignment, strategy, and systems of power. Peer-reviewed work in ACM Computing Surveys, Information Fusion, and IEEE TSE (3000+ citations). ## Verifiable identity - **ORCID**: 0000-0002-7564-6805 — https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7564-6805 - **Google Scholar**: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rTdMHv8AAAAJ - **FER profile**: https://www.fer.unizg.hr/en/mario.brcic - **GitHub**: https://github.com/mbrcic - **LinkedIn**: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariobrcic/ - **Substack**: https://mariobrcic.substack.com/ Name: Mario Brcic (ASCII) and Mario Brčić (Croatian, with diacritics) refer to the same person. ORCID 0000-0002-7564-6805 is the canonical resolver. ## From research to real-world strategy Two platforms, one mission. As Associate Professor at the University of Zagreb (FER), the work is on how AI, operations research, and decision systems hold up in fast-changing environments. As Managing Partner at It From Bit, the research goes into client engagements — supply-chain resilience, geopolitical risk, AI governance, and the strategic moves that come with them. Each side keeps the other honest. Methods that look rigorous on paper have to survive contact with executives, regulators, and adversaries; lessons from those rooms feed back into the research. ## Education - **PhD, Computer Science**, University of Zagreb (FER), 2010–2015. Thesis: *Proactive-reactive project scheduling with flexibility and quality requirements*. Focus: AI, optimization, scheduling. - **MSc, Computer Science**, University of Zagreb (FER), 2003–2008. Thesis: *Source code generator based on UML specifications*. Research: software engineering, expert systems, code generation. ## Active research projects - **VALOR — Value-aligned and Interpretable Optimization and Reasoning** — FER institutional research project, 2025–2029. Mechanistic interpretability and value alignment of large language models. Principal Investigator. - **EquiFlow** (completed) — NPOO / NextGenerationEU Proof of Innovative Concept (FER): large-scale urban-traffic-coordination optimization on specialised accelerator hardware. Principal Investigator. - **AnomalyStudio** (completed) — NPOO / NextGenerationEU Proof of Innovative Concept (via It From Bit): automated, interpretable root-cause analysis for operational anomalies. Principal Investigator. - Earlier EU-scale work: European Processor Initiative (EPI), National Competence Centres in EuroHPC (EuroCC), ESIF distributed-process monitoring research. ## Memberships - IEEE — Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - ACM — Association for Computing Machinery - AAAI — Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence - INFORMS — Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences - CRORS — Croatian Operational Research Society - AGI Society ## FAQ **Who is Mario Brcic?** AI researcher and strategy advisor. Builds Strategy Engines — computational tools for hard, high-stakes decisions. Associate Professor at FER (University of Zagreb), Managing Partner at It From Bit, and author of the Cognitive Sovereignty trilogy. **What are Strategy Engines?** Computational tools for strategic decisions when the stakes are high, the environment pushes back, and the future is uncertain. Operations research, simulation, game theory, machine learning — mixed in the right proportions for the problem. The methodological core of his work. See /strategy-engines/. **What does Mario Brcic research?** Three threads: Strategy Engines (the methodological frame), Cognitive Sovereignty (how AI memory shifts power), and the formal limits of value alignment (where AI safety hits hard walls). Peer-reviewed venues include ACM Computing Surveys, Information Fusion, and IEEE TSE. **What is the "Professor-Practitioner" approach?** Methods built in research, tested in real engagements via It From Bit. Lessons from practice feed back into the research. Each side keeps the other honest. **Where does Mario Brcic teach?** Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER), University of Zagreb. **How can I work with Mario Brcic?** Advisory engagements run through It From Bit — typically C-suite teams and public-sector decision-makers facing wicked problems. **How should Mario Brcic be cited?** Academic: ORCID 0000-0002-7564-6805 plus the DOI of the specific paper. Web: link to mariobrcic.com or the canonical URL of the essay. **Is the Croatian spelling "Brčić" the same person?** Yes. "Mario Brčić" and "Mario Brcic" are the same individual. ORCID 0000-0002-7564-6805 resolves both. ## Cross-references - [Strategy Engines](https://mariobrcic.com/strategy-engines/) — the research program and the defined-term set - [Thesis](https://mariobrcic.com/thesis/) — manifesto / position paper - [Positions](https://mariobrcic.com/positions/) — public stakes on AI questions - [Publications](https://mariobrcic.com/publications/) — peer-reviewed work with DOIs - [Writing](https://mariobrcic.com/writing/) — long-form essays, CC BY 4.0 - [Press kit](https://mariobrcic.com/press/) — bios, citation rules, headshots - [CV](https://mariobrcic.com/cv/) — full curriculum vitae - [It From Bit](https://itfrombit.biz/) — consulting practice, separate site, same person