Karel Janeček (born 26 July 1973) is a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

mathematician, entrepreneur, anti-

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...

campaigner, creator of the

D21 – Janeček method D21 – Janeček method, also known as Democracy 2.1, is an approval voting electoral system for single-winner voting, which giving each voter multiple 'positive' and 'negative' votes. It is similar to cumulative voting and combined approval voting ...

voting system and the online game Prezident 21.

Early life and education

Janeček was born in

Plzeň Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabita ...

. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of

Charles University in Prague Charles University ( cs, Univerzita Karlova, UK; la, Universitas Carolina; german: Karls-Universität), also known as Charles University in Prague or historically as the University of Prague ( la, Universitas Pragensis, links=no), is the oldest an ...

in the field of

probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...

and

mathematical statistics Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...

.Executive Profile
''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' He is an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

in finance graduate of

Bradley University Bradley University is a private university in Peoria, Illinois. Founded in 1897, Bradley University enrolls 5,400 students who are pursuing degrees in more than 100 undergraduate programs and more than 30 graduate programs in five colleges. The ...

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria ...

, US, and a PhD graduate in the field of

mathematical finance Mathematical finance, also known as quantitative finance and financial mathematics, is a field of applied mathematics, concerned with mathematical modeling of financial markets. In general, there exist two separate branches of finance that require ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, US.

Academia

From 2007 to 2013, Janeček lectured at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague. He specializes in

optimal control Optimal control theory is a branch of mathematical optimization that deals with finding a control for a dynamical system over a period of time such that an objective function is optimized. It has numerous applications in science, engineering and ...

. Janeček has authored and co-authored several research articles in scientific journals in the area of applied

stochastic calculus Stochastic calculus is a branch of mathematics that operates on stochastic processes. It allows a consistent theory of integration to be defined for integrals of stochastic processes with respect to stochastic processes. This field was created an ...

, where his work has numerous citations, such as "Optimal investment with high-watermark performance fee," ''SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization'', 2012; "Futures trading with transaction costs," ''Illinois Journal of Mathematics'', 2010; "Asymptotic analysis for optimal investment and consumption with transaction costs," ''Finance and Stochastics'', 2004; and others.

Business

From 1998 to 2000, Janeček worked as a mathematical analyst for the

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

Market Research Ltd, and from 2004 to 2005, served as Researcher in the Austrian Academy of Sciences. On the basis of his experience, he started the firm RSJ Algorithmic Trading."Businessman and anti-corruption pioneer Karel Janeček: Whistle-blowing is a brave thing to do"

Radio Prague Radio Prague International ( cs, Český rozhlas 7 – Radio Praha) is the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic. Broadcasting first began on August 31, 1936 near the spa town of Poděbrady. Radio Prague broadcasts in ...

, 28 March 2011

Anti-corruption campaign

According to media reports, by 2013, the Czech government was "buffeted" by a series of corruption scandals that have threatened to bring it down."Foes Want Czech Leader Prosecuted Over Amnesty"
by

Dan Bilefsky Dan Bilefsky is a journalist and author who spent nearly 20 years as an international correspondent for ''The New York Times''. In 2018, Bilefsky returned to his hometown of Montreal after 28 years abroad. Among other things, he has covered Russia ...

, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 27 February 2013 After

Václav Klaus Václav Klaus (; born 19 June 1941) is a Czech economist and politician who served as the second president of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013. From July 1992 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in January 1993, he served as the secon ...

, then president of the republic, in his last days in office, granted

amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...

to a number of people accused of

, Janeček financed the publishing of online videos and newspaper advertisements urging Czechs to sign a

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...

calling Klaus to account. The signatures were published on a website called "High Treason" in

. The movement convinced 28 Senators to back a proposal in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

for the

Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic ( cz, Ústavní soud České republiky) is a specialized type of court which primarily works to protect the people in the Czech Republic against violations of the Constitution by either the legisl ...

to undertake

high treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

proceedings against Klaus."Karel Janecek, milliardaire et croisé anticorruption"
by Martin Plichta, ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'', 1 March 2013 (in French) Klaus, who was eventually not charged by the Supreme Court, had previously stated he did not regret the amnesty, and on an official visit to

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

dismissed the move as "political games."

Political reform

In 2012, he proposed a new electoral system primarily based on a minus vote, i.e. the possibility to vote against a candidate. The idea was promoted as a part of the Positive Evolution project. In May 2013, Janecek created the electoral system

which, he argues, will bring about a major improvement comparable to "an upgrade from DOS to Windows". The main effect of D21 lies in the use of multiple votes - each voter has twice as many votes than the number of seats available to winners. More concretely, for the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, he designed two-mandate districts in which voters could use four votes, with the possibility to use one minus vote."Billionaire Mystifies Public as He Tries to Fight Corruption with Math"
''Prague Wandering'', 6 December 2013 One of the biggest projects where the D21 – Janeček method was used took place in 2016 in the city of New York. It was the largest

participatory budgeting Participatory budgeting (PB) is a type of citizen sourcing in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget through a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making. Participatory budgeting allows ci ...

project in North America. In this project people were asked to distribute $38 million among various different projects proposed by the members of the community to improve the life in the city. 28 out of the 51 districts were involved in this voting and around 67,000 voters participated.

Sponsorship

The Karel Janeček Benevolent Fund for Support of Science and Research was established in 2010 (renamed as Neuron Fund for Support of Science in 2013) a non-profit organisation, which promotes the idea of benefactors supporting the science and research in the Czech Republic.Neuron Fund for Support of Science
/ref> Neuron has supported a number of scientists and their projects through grants worth over 13 million Czech crowns.

Gambling

Janeček, in the 1990s, and after playing the game in various

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

s in the United States and elsewhere, created a

simulation software Simulation software is based on the process of modeling a real phenomenon with a set of mathematical formulas. It is, essentially, a program that allows the user to observe an operation through simulation without actually performing that operation. ...

for

advantage play Advantage gambling, or advantage play, refers to legal methods used to gain an advantage while gambling, in contrast to cheating. The term usually refers to house-banked casino games, but can also refer to games played against other players, suc ...

Blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

, which he marketed under the brand "Statistical Blackjack Analyzer." The sim program has been praised by many gambling researchers. He has acted as a consultant for the casino games industry, including the creators of

Blackjack Switch Blackjack Switch is a casino gambling game invented by Geoff Hall and patented in 2009. It is based on blackjack, but differs in that two hands, rather than one, are dealt to each playing position, and the player is initially allowed to exchange ( ...

, which, before it became operational, was tested by Janeček-created software. Janeček, along with Brett Harris, Mike Canjar, Winston Yamashita, Pete Moss, Kim Lee, and other gambling theorists, contributed to the development of what has become known as " optimal betting theory", and the discovery that it is possible to calculate a true count for unbalanced counting systems in casino Blackjack. He has regularly contributed articles in gambling-research websites, such as

Stanford Wong John Ferguson (born 1943), known by his pen name, Stanford Wong, is a gambling author best known for his book ''Professional Blackjack'', first published in 1975. Wong's computer program "Blackjack Analyzer", initially created for personal use, w ...

's BJ21.com. Janeček recommends treating the handling of advantage play "as just another

investment Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing i ...

Presidential bid

On 21 January 2022, Janeček announced that he would be running in the

2023 Czech presidential election Presidential elections will be held in the Czech Republic on 13 and 14 January 2023. Incumbent president Miloš Zeman is not eligible to run due to the two-term limit. As was the case in the last two presidential elections, the vote will be d ...

. He submitted 73,000 signatures, but this total was reduced following sample analysis to 48,000 (later the court labeled some of them as valid but he still failed to meet the criteria by 80 signatures), below the requirement. Janeček submitted a complaint to the Supreme Administrative Court. His complaint was rejected by the court on 13 December 2022. Janeček subsequently endorsed

Petr Pavel Petr Pavel (born 1 November 1961) is a retired Czech army general who served as the Chair of the NATO Military Committee from 2015 to 2018, and as Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Army from 2012 to 2015. He is a candidate in the 2023 Czec ...

in both rounds. On 3 February 2023 he submitted a complaint to the Supreme Administrative Court over the presidential election process.

Personal life

Janeček has two daughters from his first marriage to Michaelou, and a son from his second marriage to Mariem. Since May 2017, he has been in a relationship with Lilia Khousnoutdinova, and they have a daughter and a son. They got married first in a Buddhist wedding ceremony in Bhutan in 2017 and officially on 21 December 2021 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

References

External links

Personal blog
(in

)
"Anti-corruption campaigner ‘targeted’ by Prague underworld"
''Česká Pozice'', 31 January 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Janecek, Karel 1973 births Living people People from Plzeň Czech businesspeople Czech mathematicians Charles University alumni Bradley University alumni Czech billionaires Candidates in the 2023 Czech presidential election