Mental illnesses affect 15.5% of the global population. They're the leading cause of disability-adjusted life years, accounting for 37% of healthy years lost from non-communicable diseases. Even worse, mental health conditions are on the rise, with some estimates putting the costs to the global economy up to $16 trillion between 2010 and 2030 if global healthcare systems can't tackle the problem. More than half of all mental illnesses remain untreated, leading to worsening mental conditions, chronic physical health problems, job stability issues, homelessness, trauma, and suicide. Understaffed and underfunded healthcare systems are unable to cope with this mental health crisis, and that's where technology can help alleviate the burden of mental illness on society by helping clinicians diagnose and treat mental conditions while giving patients tools to better manage their conditions on a daily basis.

The Canadian city of Toronto is a thriving hub of start-up activity in areas ranging from next-generation marketing to AI, fintech and more. As one of the biggest cities in Canada and the capital of the province of Ontario, Toronto is in many respects Canada's start-up capital. The city's tech scene is booming. According to Toronto Global, the city and its surrounding region generated more tech jobs in the previous year than New York City or the San Francisco Bay Area combined. Google has invested $5m in the Vector Institute to make Toronto one of the foremost global players in the AI space.

StartupBlink, a Swiss interactive platform for startups, has released its 2019 Ecosystem Ranking Report, with Canada holding on to the third position, boasting five cities in the top 100 startup ecosystems globally. "Canada's major strength lies in the distribution of strong startup hubs scattered throughout the country." Along with Canada, the US, UK, and Israel all held on to the top four spots for countries with the strongest startup ecosystems. However, Canada's typical tech hubs fell in the rankings compared to 2017. This year, Toronto ranked 15, after dropping four spots, while Vancouver dropped six places to 24.

Almost a thousand attendees filled the century-old St James Theater in the heart of Old Montréal for the World Summit AI Americas. Held April 10 – 11, the conference welcomed AI leaders from industry and academia, who shared their AI experiences, insights, and analysis. Sessions included deep dive tech talks that broke down technical details for a general knowledge audience, as well as detailed use cases examining practical applications of AI in enterprise and how the tech has transformed business. There were also workshops hosted by startups, scale-ups and unicorns; which addressed challenges such as machine learning in drug development, the use of AI for social good, and how governments can harness the power of AI to improve infrastructure. On day one attendees filled the main conference room to hear Turing Award 2018 Honoree Yoshua Bengio. An AI chic atmosphere was informed by multicoloured stained glass windows, loud DJ music and a dazzling welcoming video.

Millennials are increasingly making time in their busy schedules to put their eggs on ice. More effective flash-freezing technologies, micro-optimized ad targeting, and a growing willingness among companies to follow Silicon Valley's lead of including fertility treatments in benefit packages have made the practice more attractive to would-be parents. At last count, more than 65,000 so-called social egg freezers in the US are doing so each year, despite the costs, physical toll, and the uncertain odds. Egg freezing doesn't guarantee a child-bearing future; recent data from one of Europe's largest IVF clinics indicates that while most eggs survive the thawing process, only about a third of them result in successful pregnancies. To give patients a sense of what their chances are, fertility doctors use a system taken from the annals of 19th-century actuarial science.

RECRUITING the right talent has always been one of the many factors that give companies their competitive edge. This has become all the more critical in the digital age, where its virtually an employees' market and companies have to compete to hire top talent from a limited pool. As a result, businesses are deploying futuristic technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) to recruit and manage their human workforce. Cosmetic giant L'Oréal, who fills about 15,000 new positions yearly, is one of the many that adopted AI technology to streamline its hiring process this year. According to one report, Global VP of L'Oréal's human resources department Eva Azoulay said that the company wanted to save time while focusing more on quality, experience, and diversity when looking for suitable candidates.

Artficial intelligence (AI) can be used in the frontline of customer service, helping customers get instant answers, fast outcomes and consistency. The infuriatingly long wait for a phone call with a live agent, just to receive an over-simplistic answer, is now being replaced with chatbot technology, powered by AI, for an immediate solution. "Chatbots are capable of sourcing data at a much faster speed than an individual working behind the scenes," explains Bernd Gross, chief technology officer at Software AG. "This not only speeds up the time taken to deliver a service, but it also frees up employees' time to focus on more value-added tasks." This frontline revolution is in its early stages, but there are a number of industries that have already embraced self-service customer experience.

The study conducted by researchers at the University of Vermont in the USA suggests a machine learning algorithm might provide a fast and easy way of diagnosing anxiety and depression – conditions that are difficult to spot and often overlooked in young people. "We need quick, objective tests to catch kids when they are suffering," said study lead author Ellen McGinnis, who is a clinical psychologist at the university's Medical Centre's Vermont Centre for Children, Youth and Families. "The majority of kids under eight are undiagnosed," she added. Early diagnosis of these conditions is critical as children respond well to treatment while their brains are still developing, according to the researchers, but if they are left untreated they are at greater risk of substance abuse and suicide later in life. Standard diagnosis involves a 60-90-minute semi-structured interview with a trained clinician and their primary caregiver. McGinnis, along with University of Vermont biomedical engineer and study senior author Ryan McGinnis, have been looking at ways to overcome this, by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make diagnosis faster and more reliable.

Scientists have extracted a 400-year record of El Niño events using coral reef cores drilled from the Pacific Ocean, revealing crucial new insight on how these weather patterns have changed. And, the data so far suggest something'unusual' has been happening in recent decades. According to the new research, El Niño events appear to be cropping up more frequently in the central Pacific than they have in past centuries, and while eastern El Niños may be getting stronger. El Niño is caused by a shift in the distribution of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Usually the wind blows strongly from east to west, due to the rotation of the Earth, causing water to pile up in the western part of the Pacific.

Police are investigating witness reports of a drone being flown Monday evening near the Imperial Palace and other downtown Tokyo areas, after a number of similar sightings were noted last week following the ascension of Emperor Naruhito. The flying of drones is banned in central Tokyo. Riot police observed what they thought was a drone flying over the Kitanomaru Garden located just north of the palace at around 7:30 p.m. Monday, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. Further reports were made later saying a drone had been spotted flying over Tokyo's Nagatacho district, where the country's Diet and the Prime Minister's Office are located, as well as in the Yotsuya and Roppongi areas of the city, according to the police. The police searched the areas but failed to track down the pilot.