I teach one of the world's most popular MOOCs (massive online open courses), "Learning How to Learn," with neuroscientist Terrence J. Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The course draws on neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and education to explain how our brains absorb and process information, so we can all be better students. Since it launched on the website Coursera in August of 2014, nearly 1 million students from over 200 countries have enrolled in our class. We've had cardiologists, engineers, lawyers, linguists, 12-year-olds, and war refugees in Sudan take the course. We get emails like this one that recently arrived: "I'll keep it short. I've recently completed your MOOC and it has already changed my life in ways you cannot imagine. I just turned 29, am in the middle of a career change to computer science, and I've never been more excited to learn."

Artificial Life Researcher; Creator of Lucy, a Robot Babay Orangutan; Author, Creation: Life and How to Make It. Physicist, Universite' de la Mediterrane' (Marseille, France); Author: What is time?

"I can't wait to push some paper today!" The mind-numbing work to keep the wheels of commerce rolling--filling out invoices, deciphering hand-written memos, processing insurance claims--can be a real grind. It's been that way since the time when Ebenezer Scrooge refused to provide another lump of coal to help warm overworked clerk Bob Cratchit. Lacking frailty of mind and body, artificial intelligence for business process automation appears to be a no-brainer. In fact, a number of companies are employing AI techniques such as machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing to automate business processes.

They have been responsible for innumerable deaths in the Middle East during the last decade and, if Amazon has its way, will deliver millions of toasters, gift sets and novels in the future. But recently drones have begun to fulfil a less utilitarian kind of role: competition in the nascent world of futuristic motorsports. A confluence of technological advances has made drone racing possible. A minuscule camera, mounted on the drone's nose, allows the pilot, as competitors are luxuriously titled, to control the vehicle through virtual reality-style goggles, as if perched in its tiny cockpit. With powerful lithium batteries, the size of which dictates the speed class of the drone, these machines, which are typically the size of a box of tissues, can reach speeds in excess of 120mph.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has captured the attention of C-suite executives across all industries and is poised to transform businesses in ways we've never seen since the impact of computer technology in the late 20th century. We are already seeing venture capitalists funding AI start-ups at a rapid pace. Technology companies are also moving swiftly to create and capture value in this emerging area. High-profile acquisitions by Google, Apple and Facebook are piquing interest in Artificial Intelligence technologies such as robotics, expert systems, computer vision, speech, gesture and facial recognition. Companies are creating new research labs devoted to innovating with these technologies. In Africa, AI has a strong role to play.

In America, 60 percent of digital media consumption now occurs on mobile or tablet devices instead of desktop computers. As people and technology have become increasingly mobile, so have their efforts to find love and sex. According to app analytics website AppAnnie, the dating application Tinder is one of the most popular tools to pursue modern romance and has been ranked as the most downloaded lifestyle app in America for nearly two years. As a social psychologist, I've focused my research on exploring why Tinder – as one of my interview participants put it – is so'evilly satisfying.' A researcher set out to explore why Tinder is so'evilly satisfying' and conducted a study with singles who use the app and those who do not A researcher from the University of Hawaii conducted a survey with a group of Tinder users and singles who do not use the app.

Digital health startups looking to solve the pharma industry's problems will be heartened to hear that German life sciences company Bayer is bringing its Grants4Apps accelerator program to San Francisco. That announcement came from Dirk Schapeler, head of Bayer's Lifescience iHub, who was speaking at the Wearable Tech Digital Health Neurotech Silicon Valley conference at Stanford University, Tuesday. Bayer's Lifescience iHub is based in Mountain View, California, and is aimed at infusing the digital component in all of Bayer's businesses including pharmaceuticals through collaboration with tech companies. As such the company is interested in sensors, AI, machine learning and digital apps. Grant4Apps is Bayer's accelerator for digital health startups worldwide.

Connected hospitals with intelligent messaging In today's hospitals, pacemakers, defibrillators and oximeters are all connected to the internet and share vitals immediately with doctors, in turn speeding response times. Hospitals have technicians, nurses, staff, billing departments, insurance providers, patients and patients' families as stakeholders, each with different requirements of information about the care given to patient. Unified Inbox offers an AI-based unified cloud IoT messaging platform for internet of things devices to connect various stakeholders, giving them the freedom to receive different messages at different frequency, with different senses of urgency in different mediums of their choice. Unified Inbox launched this at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore as "CUBE," the IoT-secured messaging gateway for healthcare. The artificial intelligence makes the hospitals connected, giving peace of mind to patients and their loved ones while improving efficiency in the overall hospital management and interaction with all stakeholders.

The American workforce is going to change dramatically as robots and automation continue to take the place of humans. To combat that, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has pledged nearly half a million dollars to test a universal basic income program. The cash will come from the Omidyar Network, the tech mogul's philanthropic investment firm and be doled out to people living in Kenya through a program called GiveDirectly. The money will be used to run a 12-year pilot program to test the feasibility of universal basic income. Through the program, a group of 6,000 Kenyan citizens will be granted regular stipends for the duration of the experiment. About 20,000 more people will also receive some form of cash to supplement their income.

A North-East fintech company is using artificial intelligence (AI) and speech recognition software to allow users to discuss their financial accounts with their phone. Darlington-based MyFirmsApp creates custom app platforms for accountants and has recently secured the right to use next generation AI platform, Amazon Lex. The software will allow the company to build apps with'human-like intelligence' that can see, hear, speak, understand and interact with the world around them. The new tech will allow accountants and their customers to have a conversational experience when using their app. CEO Joel Oliver believes that being able to create chat bots using Amazon Lex will help accountants carry out simple tasks and allow them to become more productive.