Žiga Turk was born on 4 February 1962 in Ljubljana. He is the Minister without Portfolio responsible for coordinating and monitoring the implementation of Slovenia's Development Strategy. He holds a BSc in civil engineering (1986), an MSc in computer science (1989), and a PhD in technical sciences (1992). Since 2004 he has been a professor at the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, and the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Ljubljana. He has been a guest lecturer at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Istanbul Technical University, and the University of Zagreb.

Minister Turk was one of the initiators and expert editors of the magazine on microcomputers 'Moj mikro' (1984-87), and a pioneer in introducing the internet to Slovenia. Today he is also known in Slovenia as the only minister with a blog, where he frequently comments on various development issues and communicates with the public.

He reviews national research projects for Austria and Finland, and scientific articles for several international magazines, and sits on the planning committees of most international events in his field. He is the co-founder and co-editor of the international scientific magazine ‘ITcon’. He has been participating in European research programmes since 1994, and has coordinated two projects worth several million euros. He was a member of the steering committee of the European Association of Product and Process Modeling and a member of the Commission for Information Technology for Construction at CIB.

In addition to information technology in construction, his research interests include the knowledge life cycle. Dr Turk collaborated on drafting the National Research and Development Programme for 2006-2010 and the strategy of Target Research Projects. He was a member of the Scientific Council at the Slovenian Research Agency, and Vice-President of the Strategic Council for Culture, Education and Science, which reviewed all major reform projects. He was also a member of the group for tax reform with the Reform Committee, President of the Supervisory Board of the telco Telekom Slovenije, and Vice-President of the Supervisory Board of Mobitel.

Minister Turk is fluent in English, German, Croatian, and Serbian, and understands Italian and Macedonian.