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.

The Internet of Things (IoT) appeared all over the news throughout 2017, whether that was due to the development of new devices, cyber attacks using unsecured devices or even new IoT divisions from companies like Dell and Rolls-Royce, we have definitely heard a lot about the emerging sector. Of course this comes as no surprise, as the oft-quoted Gartner prediction goes: there will be over 20 billion connected things by 2020. The increase in connected devices over the past year, from toasters to toothbrushes, shows we may be getting even closer to the forecast. As the opportunity within the IoT sector continues to rise, businesses globally have been taking a leap to developing unique devices or searching for a way to get in on the action with emerging software or platform solutions. Here are some IoT trends to watch out for in 2018, according to the experts.

One of the greatest benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) to humankind is its influence on the medical field. This is according to Anton Jacobs, MD of Networks Unlimited, who says: "Powered by some of the most sophisticated technology, AI is assisting in improving medical diagnosis." From an AI doctor and chatbot to AI's powerful applications, machine learning and deep learning, a world that used to be all about coding, is transitioning into using computer programming to assist in life changing health issues such as early cancer detection. A massive advantage is that AI has the power to pool knowledge from the best specialists worldwide and provide it to patients anywhere geographically. "Imagine what this could mean to patients living in rural areas. They'd finally have the same access to knowledge as patients in top medical facilities," adds Jacobsz.

Recently, linear formulations and convex optimization methods have been proposed to predict diffusion-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) data given estimates of brain connections generated using tractography algorithms. The size of the linear models comprising such methods grows with both dMRI data and connectome resolution, and can become very large when applied to modern data. In this paper, we introduce a method to encode dMRI signals and large connectomes, i.e., those that range from hundreds of thousands to millions of fascicles (bundles of neuronal axons), by using a sparse tensor decomposition. We show that this tensor decomposition accurately approximates the Linear Fascicle Evaluation (LiFE) model, one of the recently developed linear models. We provide a theoretical analysis of the accuracy of the sparse decomposed model, LiFESD, and demonstrate that it can reduce the size of the model significantly. Also, we develop algorithms to implement the optimisation solver using the tensor representation in an efficient way.

The next wave of digital technologies is on the way, and it promises to change our lives as dramatically as the smartphone did, says Ernst Wittmann, Global account director MEA & country manager – Southern Africa, at Alcatel. "We're seeing technologies such as chatbots, augmented reality and video that has transformed the way we use our mobile devices," he said. Wittmann underlined several 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.