Dr. Olivia Yijian Liu
Business anthropologist. Data scientist. Author of Start-up Wolf.
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Why I co-founded Polyfoni
Why I co-founded Polyfoni
"I am a business anthropologist and entrepreneurship scholar by training. My research brought me inside the AI startup ecosystem, where I spent four years conducting 95 interviews with AI founders, investors, and engineers and interning at 3 AI start-ups. That research became Start-up Wolf (Routledge, 2024), an Amazon Bestseller in startups category.
The past three years after my PhD, while working in tech, I have been completing a postgraduate degree in data science and AI. The transition was fascinating and disorienting: a different way of asking questions, producing knowledge, and deciding what counts as evidence.
The longer I spent inside it, the more I noticed what was missing. Most training data is in English. Most models are trained on biased data. Global South contexts are underrepresented in datasets and overrepresented in assumptions. Qualitative knowledge — the kind built through fieldwork and conversation — rarely makes it into the systems being built.
That gap is why Polyfoni exists. I co-founded this center to bring Global South social science into the conversation about AI, development, and technology infrastructure. "
Bio
Bio
Education
Education
PhD, Anthropology of Technology and Entrepreneurship, University of Oslo 2019–2023
MSc, Multidisciplinary China Studies + Diploma in Diplomatic Studies, University of Oxford 2016–2018
BSc, Sciences for Peace: International Cooperation, University of Pisa / University of Porto. 2013–2016
Postgraduate Diploma, Data Science & Generative AI, Purdue University (with IBM) 2025–Sep 2026
Work Experience
Work Experience
Co-Founder, Polyfoni Oslo Center for Global South Social Science 2026–present
Solution Consultant, Basware (Enterprise SaaS) 2025–2026
Senior Associate, Investment & Portfolio, Antler (Venture Capital) 2024–2025
Management Consultant, Xynteo. 2023–2024
PhD Researcher, University of Oslo. 2019–2023
Advocacy Coordinator, EU SME Centre / EU Chamber of Commerce, Beijing. 2019
Selected Publication
Selected Publication
Books and Book Chapters
Liu, O. Y. (2024). Start-up Wolf: The Shenzhen model of high-tech entrepreneurship. Routledge. 10.4324/9781003456339.
Seng, J., & Liu, O. Y. (2026). Hong Kong — Professor Tang and SenseTime: Navigating the entrepreneurial journey as an academic. In A. Baskaran, V. G. R. Chandran Govindaraju, & S. K. Selvarajan (Eds.), Cases on entrepreneurship in the Asia-Pacific. Edward Elgar Publishing. 10.4337/9781035328390.00012.
Liu, O. Y. (2026). Entrepreneurial persuasion: How relational storytelling shapes digital entrepreneurship in China. In P. L. Tan & K. Sang (Eds.), Investigating persuasion and storytelling for effective communication. IGI Global Scientific Publishing. (pp. 175-202). IGI Global Scientific Publishing. 10.4018/979-8-3373-5263-3.ch008.
Journal Articles
Liu, O. Y. (2024). To be "entrepreneured": An ethnographic study of entrepreneurship competitions in China. Journal of Business Anthropology, 13(1).
Liu, O. Y. (2023). China's maker movement: What is it and why does no-one talk about it anymore? Made in China Journal, 8(1), 54–61.
Policy, Media & Dissemination
Liu, O. Y. (2026). AI Governance Fieldnotes: A business anthropologist reads China's AI regulation for European policy professionals. Substack.
Liu, O. Y. (2024). The competitions shaping China's startup scene. Sixth Tone.
Liu, O. Y. (2023). Life as "humineral"? What is behind China's high-tech boom? Infocus, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Asiaportal.
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