This holiday season we ask: How can artificial intelligence and other new technologies help make our roads safer? This article also appears on LinkedIn. Stop me if you've heard this one before: Why did the chicken cross the road? While you ponder that question, let me ask you another: Have you ever wondered if the chicken manages to cross the road safely? Every year, especially during festive seasons, hundreds of thousands of people across the world pack their bags and families, and journey back to their home towns where joyous celebrations and loved ones await.

With student outcomes being a key performance metric for higher education institutes, many are turning to leverage data to glean insights and drive improved outcomes. "For many institutions, student performance has a direct impact on rankings. AI can be a tool to help better manage outcomes and ensure continued innovation to optimize operations and enhance student engagements, as it reduces resource-intensive work among faculty and administrative staff," said Larry Nelson, Regional General Manager – Education, Microsoft Asia. "In fact, we found that 3 out 4 education leaders agree that AI will be able to drive competitiveness in the next 3 years. However, only 32% of education institutions in Asia Pacific have embarked on their AI journey," added Nelson.

Microsoft researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that has taught itself the intricacies of Mahjong and can now match the skills of some of the world's top players. The complex board game of chance, bluff, and strategy was invented in China thousands of years ago and remains a passionate pastime for millions of Asians today, with many dedicated competitors playing online. Computers have learned to play Chess and another ancient Chinese game, Go, amid much fanfare in the past. But scientists at Microsoft Research (MSR) Asia see their achievement as far more than just a case of technology mastering yet another game. The researchers – who named their system Super Phoenix, or Suphx for short – developed a series of AI algorithmic breakthroughs to navigate the uncertain nature of Mahjong.

How we adopt – and adapt to – artificial intelligence in the workplace will be crucial to the future of our region's economic growth and the very nature of employment. The 4th Industrial Revolution is already bringing many changes. And, policymakers, employers, and civil society organizations across the Asia Pacific are looking for innovative and inclusive ways to maximize the opportunities created by AI. They also want to manage the challenges. Among these is the need to understand what the evidence is telling us. In particular, governments want to see what the likely outcomes are so that they can invest today in policies to re-skill for an AI-driven future.

Nothing is more associated with death and destruction than fire. It can produce a primal fear in all of us. So, when a university professor in Seoul, South Korea, challenged his class to use data to find solutions for complicated real-world problems, one student suggested analyzing information held by the city's Fire Department. The idea was to predict the probability of fires so that authorities could take action to make the city safer for its more than 9 million residents. Hongik University's Professor Jae Seung Lee and his students used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms to develop a new model that can now do just that.

Earlier, the students spent two days in workshops where they were versed in computer learning and object recognition with Microsoft's Custom Vision solution and Azure cloud computing platform. After forming 15 teams, they were assigned a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone. They were given flying lessons and also tasked with training it to recognize different objects using AI. On competition day, each team was set a common challenge: maneuver their pre-trained drone over an area where different pieces of fruit had been placed, then operate the craft's camera so that AI technology could recognize each as an apple, a pear, a pomelo, a banana, or a mango. The teams were ranked and scored on the number accurately identified as well as physical drone flying skills and completion time.

For centuries, the three faces of the Ashura Buddha have looked out from inside the Kofukuji Temple in the ancient Japanese city of Nara. But when devotees and scholars gaze back, what do they see? Or, at least, what do they think they see? Long and thin with six arms and three heads, the 1,200-year-old masterpiece is both revered as an object of faith and admired as a work of art. It's even been officially classified as a national treasure.

In March 2011, one of the most powerful earthquakes recorded in Japan shook the country's northeastern coast. It flattened thousands of homes and buildings, destroyed infrastructure, and triggered a tsunami that wiped out whole communities. As the death toll rose above 20,000 with many more people injured and homeless, scientists and policymakers around the globe asked: How can society use technology to better prepare for, and respond to, natural disasters? How can we work faster to save lives? Leading this new thinking are researcher Yanbing Bai and a team at Tohoku University's International Research Institute of Disaster Science based in the region hardest hit by the quake.

A new wave of innovation is surging ahead. And, the world's manufacturing powerhouse, Asia, is riding its crest. The billions of appliances, gadgets, machines, and vehicles that are routinely rolling off Asian production lines are becoming smarter and connected. So too are the factories that make them. Built with sensors, infused with artificial intelligence (AI) and enabled by machine learning (ML), these devices will push the boundaries of the Internet of Things (IoT) through the next decade and beyond.

Deep in the rainforest in a northern corner of the Republic of Congo, some of the most sophisticated monitoring of animal sounds on earth is taking place. Acoustic sensors are collecting large amounts of data around the clock for the Elephant Listening Project. These sensors capture the soundscape in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and adjacent logging areas: chimpanzees, gorillas, forest buffalo, endangered African grey parrots, fruit hitting the ground, blood-sucking insects, chainsaws, engines, human voices, gunshots. But researchers and local land managers who placed them there are listening for one sound in particular -- the calls of elusive forest elephants. Forest elephants are in steep decline; scientists estimate two-thirds of Africa's population has likely been lost to ivory poaching in recent decades.