Marking the coming of the fourth industrial revolution, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is permeating every major industry from healthcare to transportation, education, finance and insurance. The McKinsey Global Institute (pdf) says that AI is contributing to a transformation of society "happening ten times faster and at 300 times the scale or at roughly 3,000 times the impact" of the Industrial Revolution. In the healthcare industry, AI's ability to help clinicians make diagnoses is one major way in which patients are benefiting directly. Technology giant IBM brought AI into the mainstream of healthcare, when it offered its AI platform Watson to cancer centres in 13 countries to aid oncologists in identifying evidence-based treatment options for patients. The promise of AI is not limited to commercial applications.

MBN Solutions have been engaged by a world renowned Fortune 500 Consulting client operating across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East, to recruit an ambitious and creative (Senior) Data Scientist to help develop and lead on a range of Big Data, Data Science and Advanced Analytical projects. You will be part of a highly reputable Data Science and Machine Learning team within the Analytics and Insight practice, working closely with a range of Blue Chip clients to derive insight and opportunities from their existing systems and to utilize advanced data driven software algorithms and technology to improve and optimize their businesses. For more info send your CV to [email protected] OR press apply!

Dawit Haile fought against the odds when he decided to study computer science in Eritrea, East Africa, despite having no internet connectivity. His perseverance paid off, first landing a job with the Eritrean government department of education, and later as an engineer in Lithuania. Today, Dawit is a data scientist in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he credits this new job to the knowledge and experience he gained from fast.ai. On the side, he's building an algorithm to translate between English and his native language of Tigrinya. Dawit is just one of many impressive fast.ai

Shiraz Khota, SAP SAThe use of artificial intelligence techniques is revolutionising a number of technologies today, including internet search, game theory, business intelligence and medicine. What's not as well known is how it's changing finance for the better. AI is making finance faster, more efficient and more innovative. Plugging large amounts of historical data into deep learning systems can yield surprising – and profitable – results, but there are also the more run-of-the-mill benefits such as reducing the day-to-day grind of repetitive tasks. Where could AI make a difference in financial work right now? Shiraz Khota, head of S/4 Hana Cloud at SAP South Africa: A lot of the technology that is out there right now already has AI technology in it, even if it's rudimentary.

Each new year provides the opportunity for reflection upon how far we have come and how far we still have to go, on both a personal and societal level. It was also the year that it took you at least a few minutes to realise the customer agent answering your queries in that little chat-box wasn't human, when you picked up a VR headset from your local toyshop for the price of a pizza, when you found yourself in far too many political arguments around the water-cooler, and when you began seriously questioning whether a computer might someday take your job -- maybe for the second time that year. We will see continuing tensions within and between countries, as 20th century nationalist sentiments push resentfully against 21st century supranational integration. There will be moments when it feels like only technology can save us, followed by events which remind us of how perilous our inventions can be when we still barely understand them. The following is not investment or professional advice of any kind, and is intended only to promote discussion and reflection on some of the rising trends and ideas of our time.

While companies like Amazon pour considerable resources into finding ways of using drones to deliver such things as shoes and dog treats, Zipline has been saving lives in Rwanda since October 2016 with drones that deliver blood. Zipline's autonomous fixed-wing drones now form an integral part of Rwanda's medical-supply infrastructure, transporting blood products from a central distribution center to hospitals across the country. And in 2018, Zipline's East African operations will expand to include Tanzania, a much larger country. Delivering critical medical supplies in this region typically involves someone spending hours (or even days) driving a cooler full of life-saving medicine or blood along windy dirt roads. Such deliveries can become dangerous or even impossible to make if roads and bridges get washed out.

The next wave of digital technologies is on the way, and it promises to change our lives as dramatically as the smartphone did. We're seeing technologies such as chatbots, augmented reality and video that has transformed the way we use our mobile devices. Here are a few of the mobile and digital trends that are likely to unfold during 2018. Artificial intelligence and chatbots will continue to mature next year, making it easier than ever for people to interact with technology and to carry out complex tasks. Powered by machine learning (computer systems that learn from experience without being programmed) and Artificial Intelligence, natural language processing allows us to speak or type to computers in our usual sentences, simplifying our interface with devices and apps.

This study provides an analysis of the African Artificial Intelligence (AI) market. The stakeholder scope includes international technology corporations and African start-ups; technology scope includes computer vision, deep learning, machine learning, natural language processing, neural networks, predictive analytics, and robotics; and the end-user scope includes a number of industries such as banking and financial services and insurance (BFSI), healthcare, manufacturing, mining, hospitality and media, amongst others. This study details the key components of an AI ecosystem and explains how AI converges with technologies such as analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). It provides a snapshot of global AI trends in terms of key investments, strategy and competition, and also lists the acquisition-led strategies adopted by leading technology corporations including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook, Salesforce and IBM. This study provides an analysis of the African AI market, including the competitive landscape and the extent of AI market development across key African countries, along with the impact potential and extent of market penetration of various AI technologies and the degree of AI adoption across key industry verticals.

As a kid, I saw the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes. As a future primatologist, I was mesmerized. Years later I discovered an anecdote about its filming: At lunchtime, the people playing chimps and those playing gorillas ate in separate groups. It's been said, "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't." And it can be vastly consequential when people are divided into Us and Them, ingroup and outgroup, "the people" (i.e., our kind) and the Others. The core of Us/Them-ing is emotional and automatic. Humans universally make Us/Them dichotomies along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, language group, religion, age, socioeconomic status, and so on. We do so with remarkable speed and neurobiological efficiency; have complex taxonomies and classifications of ways in which we denigrate Thems; do so with a versatility that ranges from the minutest of microaggression to bloodbaths of savagery; and regularly decide what is inferior about Them based on pure emotion, followed by primitive rationalizations that we mistake for rationality. But crucially, there is room for optimism. Much of that is grounded in something definedly human, which is that we all carry multiple Us/Them divisions in our heads. A Them in one case can be an Us in another, and it can only take an instant for that identity to flip. Thus, there is hope that, with science's help, clannishness and xenophobia can lessen, perhaps even so much so that Hollywood-extra chimps and gorillas can break bread together.

While Amazon and United Parcel Service pour considerable resources into finding ways of using drones to deliver such things as shoes and dog treats, Zipline has been saving lives in Rwanda since October 2016 with drones that deliver blood. Zipline's autonomous fixed-wing drones now form an integral part of Rwanda's medical-supply infrastructure, transporting blood products from a central distribution center to hospitals across the country. And in 2018, Zipline's East African operations will expand to include Tanzania, a much larger country. Delivering critical medical supplies in this region typically involves someone spending hours (or even days) driving a cooler full of life-saving medicine or blood along windy dirt roads. Such deliveries can become dangerous or even impossible to make if roads and bridges get washed out.