During crises, we are confronted with an opportunity to think differently and create rapid change that can have long-lasting impact. The COVID-19 crisis is no exception. According to research by McKinsey & Company, COVID-19 has dramatically accelerated the adoption of new technologies, and many of these are here to stay. Organizations were forced to adopt new technologies overnight to survive, or risk becoming irrelevant. As a result, almost every sector has altered the way they interact and do business with their customers over the past two years.

"This past year, business models have been reinvented. Supply chains have been restructured. Promises of new scientific breakthroughs have been suddenly realized. Productivity, we now know, can thrive virtually." So says a new report, Business Futures 2021: Signals of Change, from professional services company Accenture.

In 2019, there were approximately 23.6 million new cancer cases and 10 million cancer deaths globally, which represents a 26.3% increase in new cases and a 20.9% increase in fatalities compared with 2010. Furthermore, COVID-19 has had devastating effects on patients with cancer, with massive numbers of delayed diagnoses and treatments due to the constraints COVID-19 has put on health systems. As the pandemic normalizes, global communities look to re-prioritize – ensuring quality and equitable access of cancer diagnostics, treatment and care. We believe the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) can address some of the most significant challenges that humanity faces today. The World Economic Forum is working with partners globally to close the gap in premature death by lung cancer and to leverage new technologies to improve and transform cancer care in India.

With every advancement in the digital world, we unlock a limitless resource: data. It is both a by-product and a driver of global development that has transformed how we make decisions. Not only do we have increased granularity and accuracy to inform evidence-based decision making, but through AI and machine learning, we enable technology to make decisions on our behalf. The value of this data is well established in the private sector. Successful businesses have captured this value through increasingly efficient and targeted advertisements and product design – with the global marketing data market worth an estimated at $52 billion in 2021.

In the wake of the pandemic, a growing number of businesses are speeding up plans to adopt AI and automation, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2020. As humans and technology increasingly work together, here are five examples of the range of applications for artificial intelligence and where it might do good. Overfishing can deprive millions of people of their livelihood and billions of people of the food they need. OceanMind is a UK-based organization fighting back against overfishing and illegal fishing using AI. Pulling data from a variety of sources, including on-board collision-avoidance transmitters, radar and satellite imagery, and phone signals, OceanMind can track thousands of vessels around the world.

COVID-19 accelerated the deployment of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies – reshaping how we work, shop, learn, socialize, even visit the doctor in ways likely to stick around long after the virus is under control. Even when we are able to safely return to "normal" life, continued acceleration of these innovations will be critical to recovery and making progress on our global goals. However, the pandemic also underscored the need for public and private sector governance to address emerging challenges and ensure tech works for everyone. As a recent World Economic Forum report explained, the pandemic "exposed even more clearly the gaps that still exist in digital access." Responsible technology governance is needed to protect against discriminatory algorithms, unethical use of data and job displacement.

Just over 20 years ago, the dotcom bubble burst, causing the stocks of many tech firms to tumble. Some companies, like Amazon, quickly recovered their value – but many others were left in ruins. In the two decades since this crash, technology has advanced in many ways. Many more people are online today than they were at the start of the millennium. Looking at broadband access, in 2000, just half of Americans had broadband access at home.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained widespread attention in recent years. AI is viewed as a strategic technology to lead us into the future. Yet, when interacting with academics, industry leaders and policy-makers alike, I have observed some growing concerns around the uncertainty of this technology. It is understandable that people might have these concerns at this moment in time and we need to face them. As long as we do, I believe we don't need to panic about AI and that society will benefit from embracing it.

Have you ever commiserated with your colleagues that your boss acts like an automaton? This soon might be more than just a figure of speech – and some employees don't necessarily think that would be a bad thing. By 2030, up to 800 million workers around the world could be replaced by machines. The fear of rampaging robots isn't just restricted to jobs. Leaders in emerging technology, such as Elon Musk, have suggested artificial intelligence (AI) is "a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization."

In Africa, like everywhere else in the world, artificial intelligence (AI) is moving up the agenda as companies, entrepreneurs and governments work out how to keep pace with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. While the continent has a long way to go when it comes to AI adoption, these technologies already play a prominent role in many individual organizations: Nigerian mobile-lending platform Carbon uses machine learning to evaluate credit applications, South African fashion retailers rely on algorithms to predict the next season's top sellers and Kenyan ride-hailing app Little has implemented AI to assess driver performance. For the continent to remain relevant on the global stage, it is not only vital that companies embrace AI, but also that local entrepreneurs have equity in these technologies. That said, building an AI-powered start-up in Africa comes with a unique set of challenges not experienced by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, particularly in terms of raising capital, human resources and market receptiveness. Entrepreneur Vian Chinner has first-hand experience of both worlds.