Democratizing Machine Learning

It used to be that one great technology defined an era. The steam engine, for example, served as the catalyst for the rise of the industrial age. Nowadays, however, a number of amazing technical advances and inventions are contending for bragging rights as the leading technology of our times. I would argue that one is particularly worthy of such boasting: machine learning. Although it has been in slow and steady development for years and has been used in a few enterprise applications, it has recently burst onto the scene in response to the explosion of data in today's increasingly connected digital world.