Sensyne Health, a London-based healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company founded by biotech entrepreneur Paul Drayson, recently launched an initial public offering (IPO) on the London AIM market. Drayson's plan is to raise $78 million. It's just one of many companies that are exploiting advances in computing, data science and AI to help identify and develop potential new drugs. Drayson was formerly the UK's Minister of Science in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills until May 2010, and before that, Minister of State for Strategic Defence Acquisition Reform at the Ministry of Defence. Drayson co-founded vaccine maker PowderJect Pharmaceuticals in 1993 and sold it in 2003 to Chiron for 524 million pounds.

British Prime Minister Theresa May pledged in May that she would invest substantially in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect cancer in its early stage. This technology is expected to save 22,000 lives each year by 2033. French President Emmanuel Macron also aims to use AI to improve healthcare. He announced in March an investment of 1.5 billion euros (USD 1.7 billion) in AI development by 2022 to allow France to compete with China and the United States. 'Although Al has great potential, there are many obstacles to overcome for it to be widely accepted by the healthcare community.'

Artificial intelligence, defined as intelligence exhibited by machines, has many applications in today's society. More specifically, it is Weak AI, the form of A.I. where programs are developed to perform specific tasks, that is being utilized for a wide range of activities including medical diagnosis, electronic trading, robot control, and remote sensing. AI has been used to develop and advance numerous fields and industries, including finance, healthcare, education, transportation, and more. AI for Good is a movement in which institutions are employing AI to tackle some of the world's greatest economic and social challenges. For example, the University of Southern California launched the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society, with the goal of using AI to address socially relevant problems such as homelessness. At Stanford, researchers are using AI to analyze satellite images to identify which areas have the highest poverty levels.[1] The Air Operations Division (AOD) uses AI for the rule based expert systems. The AOD has use for artificial intelligence for surrogate operators for combat and training simulators, mission management aids, support systems for tactical decision making, and post processing of the simulator data into symbolic summaries.[2]

Artificial intelligence has now become the focus of interest in most business areas. It is because in the past few years technological applications have compounded in terms of innovations and research. What failed in the late '50s (the period when AI originated) has now gained traction and is used in a vast array of areas. Tech companies and startups have now focussed on AI systems being their workhorse in tandem with their employees and have reinvented the way work is done. Additionally, AI startups are also on the rise.

I am exploring these ideas in a free coding workshop/ meetups in London. There is already a waiting list. We may hold more workshops next year depending on how these go. I have been involved in teaching Data Science for a few years now (Oxford University - Data Science for Internet of Things and also online). Over the years, I have tried to improve my teaching .. and adopt ideas from other domains into my teaching One such technique is Deliberate practice a technique which probably originated in the former Soviet Union to train world class athletes.

A large yet tidy refugee camp rises from the desert near the Syrian-Jordanian border. Most people wouldn't think of this as a hub of innovation, but nevertheless, a science and technology show has arrived with cameras and microphones. They're interviewing officials from UNICEF who describe the techniques they developed to safely remove sewage from the camp. Another week, and the cameras arrive in Stockholm to watch a new type of drone make its way through a dark tunnel. The show in question is 4Tech, a program on the BBC Arabic that since 2011 has attracted viewers in a market dominated by glitzy Arab versions of reality shows like "The Voice" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

Self-driving cars are like snowbird retirees. Given the freedom to live, or operate, anywhere in the country, they turn their backs on wintry states and flock to the sun. There's a reason Waymo, Uber, and even grocery story giant, Kroger, are testing their shiny new autonomous vehicles in southwestern cities like Phoenix. Yes, Arizona's regulations are friendly to them, but the year-round good weather is the major draw. As sophisticated as these machines are becoming, they still struggle when fog reduces visibility, or when snow covers lane markings.

In 1955, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story about an experiment in "electronic democracy," in which a single citizen, selected to represent an entire population, responded to questions generated by a computer named Multivac. The machine took this data and calculated the results of an election that therefore never needed to happen. Asimov's story was set in Bloomington, Indiana, but today an approximation of Multivac is being built in China. For any authoritarian regime, "there is a basic problem for the center of figuring out what's going on at lower levels and across society," says Deborah Seligsohn, a political scientist and China expert at Villanova University in Philadelphia. How do you effectively govern a country that's home to one in five people on the planet, with an increasingly complex economy and society, if you don't allow public debate, civil activism, and electoral feedback?

Elon Musk says he is unable to work proper hours, even if his habits are causing him serious damage in his personal life. The Tesla boss has been called on by people including Arianna Huffington, who said that he needed to adopt a healthier work-life balance. But he said such a decision was not an option. The comments came after Mr Musk conducted a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times in which he detailed the stress of running his company and the ways it was ruining his personal life. He broke down as he described not celebrating his own birthday and nearly missing his brother's wedding.

A video that appears to show a human-like robot walking slowly down a driveway has stoked fears of a robot apocalypse, receiving thousands of shares across social media. The 14-second clip has caught the attention of celebrities on Twitter, including the illusionist Derren Brown and Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. Welsh compared the robot's gait to his after a night partying, tweeting: "Got a fright there. Thought that was 90's footage of me walking home from Pure or Turnmills after a night on the eckies." Brown simply tweeted: "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE."