Over the past year, this column has celebrated female technologists of all disciplines and from across a wide range of industries. Nearly all of them have mentioned the growing importance of Artificial Intelligence or machine learning to their work. Importantly, those same women all reinforced the need to engage more females in positions relative to AI – both to aid in its unbiased application and to optimize its use in business and society. So, as we look ahead to the trends and technologies that will likely dominate this next year and decade, it makes sense to begin by unpacking how AI might continue its march forward and the opportunities it will create for female entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, and others. From email marketing to financial services, women tech leaders expect AI and machine learning to continue augmenting businesses' abilities to improve scale, efficiency, and – in some cases – impact.

Data science is transforming many industries, from health care to banking to heavy manufacturing, and women are leading the charge. That was the crux of the Cambridge Women in Data Science Conference, held March 5 as part of a global event launched by Stanford University in 2015 to educate, inspire, and connect women in tech. The local conference, now in its second year, was hosted by the Institute of Applied Computational Science (IACS) at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society; and Microsoft. Distinguished speakers from academia and industry presented technical talks to more than 240 female technologists, researchers, and students, highlighting research in such areas as deep learning applications in oncology, data science tools for pollution monitoring, and the challenges of preventing bias in algorithms. In addition, local winners of an international datathon/kaggle challenge, held in conjunction with Stanford's global conference were announced, and students presented posters and took advantage of networking and recruiting opportunities.

Having worked in traditional brick and mortar and then at a TV shopping network early in my career, I remain fascinated by the radical changes remaking the retail industry. I'm especially intrigued by the innovations that have driven these changes over the years - from the early traveling salesmen to catalogs to department stores and now online and web selling. With their customers having ordered over one billion items this past holiday season, Amazon is indeed the new Sears. But what does the future hold? Much of this innovation and change derives from the introduction of new technologies, and the resulting pace of change is dynamic.