Battling a pandemic as serious as COVID-19 requires drastic responses, and political leaders and public-health officials have turned to some of the most radical strategies available. What began with a lockdown of one city in China quickly expanded to the quarantine of an entire province, and now entire countries including Italy. While social isolation and curfews are among the most effective ways to break the chain of viral transmission, some health experts say it's possible these draconian measures didn't have to become a global phenomenon. "If health officials could have taken action earlier and contained the outbreak in Wuhan, where the first cases were reported, the global clampdown could have been at a much more local level," says Richard Kuhn, a virologist and professor of science at -Purdue University. The key to early response lies in looking beyond centuries-old strategies and incorporating methods that are familiar to nearly every industry from banking to retail to manufacturing, but that are still slow to be adopted in public health.

SAN FRANCISCO – A former Google star engineer charged with stealing trade secrets from its self-driving car program has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors, according to court documents filed Thursday. Anthony Levandowski, 39, was a founding member of an autonomous vehicle project in 2009 called "Chauffeur," one of Google's more ambitious undertakings. Several years later Levandowski began thinking of leaving Google for another self-driving endeavor that was eventually named "Otto," the plea deal said. He began negotiating with ride-sharing giant Uber to invest in or buy Otto while he was still working at Google, and admits having downloaded a whole series of documents a few months before his resignation in January 2016. "Prior to my departure, I downloaded thousands of files related to Project Chauffeur," Levandowski said in court documents.

Imagine a typical Tuesday morning. The lot is full, with vehicles parked nose to nose. You wait in a long line, similar to what you would see at Disney on a typical weekend. When you finally get inside, you see rows upon rows of empty shelves. You maneuver your shopping cart around frenzied shoppers, only to find that Costco is out of face masks, nonperishable items, medications, hand sanitizers, and hand soaps. The fear and panic as the coronavirus (known as '2019-nCov' or'Covid-19) spreads globally.

Artificial intelligence (AI) experimentation is now prolific across South African companies, with many businesses demonstrating enthusiasm for AI. According to Business Tech (2019), over 45% of South African businesses say that they're already actively piloting AI within their organisations. Metaphorical robots are infiltrating organisations and reinventing business processes due to the rapid rise in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which has become a readily available solution offered by ICT service providers. A year ago, says 4IR guru Arthur Goldstuck, "only 6% of South African enterprises were using robotics. Then came the RPA explosion. Now the figure stands at 37% (in Engineering News, 2019)."

MSI first connected with dotData in 2017, when MSI's CIO visited Silicon Valley for a technical survey, Yokoyama said. At that time, dotData was just getting started, and it hadn't released a product. Still, MSI was intrigued by its automated machine learning platform, which claims to provide full-cycle machine learning automation. "When it comes to data analysis, model accuracy often gets the most attention; dotData, on the other hand, focuses on how quickly you can move from raw data to working models -- the AI-based feature engineering is what stood out," Yokoyama said. MSI had to build a lot of intelligent models, said Ryohei Fujimaki, CEO and founder of dotData.

DURBAN - The recent Covid-19 fuelled rush on retailers in South Africa, as consumers start stockpiling grocery staples, is leaving many shelves empty. Some, such as Makro, have recently announced that they will be "enforcing customer limits on shoppers … to give customers fair access to essential items." Morne Laubscher, CTO of Logicalis South Africa said, "Both online and brick-and-mortar retailers are experiencing a run on products, which is limiting their ability to service the needs of their entire customer base". Retailers have the data that they need for customer buying patterns but often aren't always able to access the benefits. The 2019 Global CIO Survey from Logicalis, a global provider of IT solutions which questioned 888 CIO's from around the globe, found that just under one in ten (9 percent) of respondents believe that their organisation is very successful at understanding the advantages of AI technology in some areas of business; whereas 44 percent believe their organisation is not very successful at all.

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has started the trial run of an autonomous vehicle within the 4.38km2 Expo 2020 Dubai site. The vehicle will be used to commute individuals on a dedicated path from the main entrance to staff offices. It can accommodate 15 riders, including 10 seated and five standing, and travels at a speed of 25kmph. It is designed to travel in closed and internal public roads within the entertainment and residential communities. The autonomous vehicle, which uses green technologies, is powered by electricity and can operate up to 16 hours.

The Black Death in the 1300s broke the long-ingrained feudal system in Europe and replaced it with the more modern employment contract. A mere three centuries later, a deep economic recession -- thanks to the 100-year war between England and France -- kick-started a major innovation drive that radically improved agricultural productivity. Fast forward to more recent times, the SARS pandemic of 2002-2004 catalyzed the meteoric growth of a then-small ecommerce company called Ali Baba and helped establish it at the forefront of retail in Asia. This growth was fueled by underlying anxiety around traveling and human contact, similar to what we see today with Covid-19. The financial crises of 2008 also produced its own disruptive side effects.

By- Amith Singhee At the dawn of the Information Age in the 1970s, the role of Information Technology (IT) was limited to'computing plumbing' - to keep the networks and computers working. In the 90s and 2000s, it evolved into an enterprise shared servicesmodel that was essential for operational efficiency, cost takeout and decision support. Today, IT is witnessing another shift that increasingly requires the Chief Information Officer organization to act as a partner in defining business strategy and driving topline growth via IT-driven business transformation. To realize this, the IT delivery platform that includes infrastructure, applications, processes and roles of people -needs to be scalable and adaptable tokeep pace with the rapidly changing business and operational needs, and, hence, transform to a hybrid cloud IT architecture. The transformation will involve four phases: Advice for Cloud, Move to Cloud, Build for Cloud and Manage on Cloud.

In this two-part series I will highlight several of the dozens of women that I believe will lead the 21st century in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Part one is focused on Women in the United States. In 2017 I discussed 9 AI minds you don't know, but should follow. The list included computer scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs as well as other trailblazing individuals. My focus now is to highlight more top minds in AI, but to specifically focus on women who are defining the 21st century's artificial intelligence movement.