LinkedIn is working to train all of its engineers on the basics of implementing artificial intelligence as part of the company's drive to make its professional social network smarter. "The demand for AI across the company has increased enormously," Deepak Agarwal, head of artificial intelligence at LinkedIn, said during an onstage interview at VB Summit 2017 today. "Everyone wants to have AI as a component of their product." The company has launched an AI academy for its engineers to give them a grounding in the basics of implementing artificial intelligence. The idea is that this will make it possible for them to deploy intelligent models in the company's products.

When Norman Borlaug, the father of the green revolution, won the Nobel Prize in 1970, the Nobel Committee remarked that "more than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world." Borlaug's introduction of disease resistant high-yielding crop varieties and advanced agricultural practices was a game changer, as agriculture yields increased tremendously and helped save millions from starvation. Half a century after Borlaug received the Nobel Prize, we live in a world where yield growth is plateauing and the total land under cultivation is decreasing. Changing weather patterns and water availability is altering productivity in certain agricultural regions. At the same time, world population continues to grow and is projected to reach at least 9 billion people by 2050, much of the growth is clustered in developing countries, where rapid economic expansion is allowing for increased calorie availability and consumption with an increased demand for protein.