Scientists have proposed a new international framework to keep ethics and human wellbeing at the forefront of our relationship with technology. From gene therapy and AI-predicted disease to self-driving cars and 3D printing, advances in technology can improve health, free up time, and boost efficiency. However despite the best intentions of its creators, technology might lead to unintended consequences for individual privacy and autonomy. There's currently no internationally agreed-upon regulation about who, for example, has access to the data recorded by black boxes in cars, smart TVs and voice enabled personal assistants - and recent findings have shown that technology can be used to influence voting behaviour. Now, Imperial College London researchers have suggested a new regulatory framework with which governments can minimise unintended consequences of our relationship with technology.

Academics and startups from Imperial College London and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology presented their innovative ideas at a conference. Co-organised by Imperial Business Partners and MIT, the Innovation Journeys Conference brought together industry leaders, academics and startups from both universities to explore and share the latest technological innovations and research. Imperial Business Partners offers a unique approach to problem-solving for research-driven industries via accelerated access to Imperial's expertise, talent and facilities. Imperial's Director of Enterprise Simon Hepworth discussed the university's role in the entrepreneurial journey, saying it is present at all stages, whether that's for students or staff. The College's enterprising ecosystem is vast, ranging from academic ventures, entrepreneurship competitions and programmes such as WeInnovate and the Enterprise Lab, which supports student innovation.

On 1st October 2019, the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare opens its doors to their first cohort. The United Kingdom Research and Innovation Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare (AI4Health) will open its doors to the first cohort of PhD students in October. Director Dr Aldo Faisal and the whole AI4Health Team are looking forward to getting started and turning vision into practice. Imperial College London understand the term "AI" as meaning the development of intelligent systems that embody a practical solution. However, practical solutions involving AI will require a broader approach and the College will drive technical innovation by providing broad training for exploitation of multiple technological strategies within the broader realm of AI.

Dr Faisal added: "The explosion in Artificial Intelligence applications in healthcare is currently focused on mimicking the perceptual ability of human doctors, e.g. However, doctors do more than just diagnose, they treat people. Our AI Clinician system focuses on capturing this cognitive capacity of doctors: Imagine having a doctor watching over you every second of every day, administering a course of treatment, observing how you respond to the treatment, and then adjusting the treatment as your condition evolves.

Provost Ian Walmsley welcomed Education Secretary Damian Hinds to the College's South Kensington Campus The Department for Education's leadership team were given an insight into the College's pioneering research, education and innovation. On Thursday 11 October Provost Ian Walmsley and President Alice Gast welcomed the Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds MP, to the College for the Department for Education board's away day. Before the board meeting began, Anne Milton MP, Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills, a number of senior civil servants and non-executive directors from the Department for Education met Provost Ian Walmsley, Vice-Provost (Education) Professor Simone Buitendijk and a number of students and academics from across the College. The visit included tours and demonstrations at the Aerial Robotics Lab, the Carbon Capture Pilot Plant and the Dyson School of Design Engineering. Director Dr Mirko Kovac gave a presentation on the work of the Aerial Robotics Lab at Imperial's Department of Aeronautics.

Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are helping doctors make better treatment decisions and improve the delivery of care, say Imperial experts. Dr Aldo Faisal, Reader in Neurotechnology jointly at the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Computing at the College, and Mr Erik Mayer, Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Department of Surgery & Cancer at the College and Honorary Consultant Surgeon at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, presented their work on big data and AI at the recent Imperial College Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) seminar series. In a packed lecture theatre, Dr Faisal outlined his work on using artificial intelligence to help doctors make better treatment decisions for the condition Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic muscle wasting disease that begins in childhood and mainly affects boys. It usually renders patients unable to walk by age 12 and carries an average life expectancy of 26 years.

The UK government launched a £1bn artificial intelligence fund with industry at Imperial College London today. The deal, announced by Business Secretary Greg Clark and Digital Secretary Matt Hancock, will fund 1,000 new government AI PhDs to keep the UK at the forefront of innovation and build the UK's status as an AI research hotspot. More than 50 leading technology companies and organisations have contributed to the development of an AI Sector Deal – which includes more than £300 million of newly allocated government funding for AI research to make the UK a global leader in this technology. Imperial is a world-leading centre in AI and machine learning with more than 600 people working with and developing artificial intelligence. These include Professor Maja Pantic, who is developing a robot which can improve learning and emotional understanding in children with autism, and Professor Aldo Faisal, who is developing software which can understand a person's intentions and direct a wheelchair by detecting their eye movement.

Professor Mark Girolami will study how engineering can use big data to improve practice, including the development of'digital twins'. Professor Girolami, from the Department of Mathematics at Imperial, has been appointed the Lloyd's Register Foundation / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data-Centric Engineering. He will lead a five-year project to explore how big data can be incorporated into engineering practice, including the development of new data-centric techniques to monitor the safety of physical structures that will be trialled on the world's first 3D printed stainless steel pedestrian bridge. As part of this, Professor Girolami will develop novel methods and software to create virtual copies of physical structures, also known as digital twins, in order to model what might happen in real life. He is currently Chair of Statistics at Imperial and Strategic Programme Director for the Turing-Lloyd's Register Foundation Data-Centric Engineering Programme at The Alan Turing Institute.

The goal of this competition was to develop machine learning models for the prediction of two materials properties, namely the formation energy, which is an indication of the stability of a new material, and the electronic band gap, which determines a material's transparency over the visible range. The developed models can potentially facilitate the discovery of new transparent conductors and allow for advancements in (opto)electronic technologies. Inspired by Jacek Golebiowski, who made valuable contributions to the final solution, Lars used a smooth overlap of atomic positions (SOAP) based descriptor developed by Barto?k et al. [1, 2] to encode information about the crystal structure of the transparent conductive oxides that were studied in this competition. These SOAP features were then used to teach a Neural Network to predict the desired materials properties. Details about the competition and the top three submissions can be found here.

A leading centre for AI education will open up to the world, as Imperial launches its first Massive Open Online Courses with Coursera. The move allows anyone with an internet connection to learn from some of the world's top researchers in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and mathematics. Professor Alice Gast, President of Imperial, said: "AI has the potential to transform many sectors. It is wonderful to have world-leading Imperial experts providing this opportunity to such a broad audience. Many will benefit from this exciting curriculum on the machine learning and mathematics underpinning the rapid advances in AI."