Membership in ACM includes a subscription to Communications of the ACM (CACM), the computing industry's most trusted source for staying connected to the world of advanced computing. Digital twins (DTs) are virtual replicas of components, assets, systems, or processes, linked to their real-world counterparts, continuously updating their states and simulating their behavior in real-time, as illustrated in Figure 1 . They are adopted for monitoring, predicting, and optimizing the performance of diverse systems, bridging the gap between design, testing and deployment. Significant efforts are being devoted across Arab R&D institutions to export technology tackling challenges that are not only pertinent to the region, but also of global importance, e.g., energy, sustainability, disaster management, healthcare, and urbanization, among many others. For instance, Khalifa University, UAE, is pioneering research into optical wireless communication using DTs.

The societal impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) dwarfs its technological impact. Already, we see AI everywhere in our daily lives; we see it in our grocery shopping app, our entertainment streaming lists, social media feeds, our dating lives, and the list goes on. The use of AI has become so naturally intertwined with our lives that we often forget to think about the future. We should ask ourselves the question of how we can unlock AI's full potential while keeping its risks at a minimum. And to investigate this question, we need to work together.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already had a profound impact on business and society. Applied AI and machine learning (ML) are creating safer workplaces, more accurate health diagnoses and better access to information for global citizens. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will represent a new era of partnership between humans and AI, with potentially positive global impact. AI advancements can help society solve problems of income inequality and food insecurity to create a more "inclusive, human-centred future" according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). There is nearly limitless potential to AI innovation, which is both positive and frightening.

You're reading the web edition of STAT Health Tech, our guide to how tech is transforming the life sciences. Sign up to get this newsletter delivered in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. A growing patchwork of state-level privacy laws could pose a challenge for upstart health tech companies. After California led the way with its consumer privacy law in 2018, Virginia and Colorado followed suit, and now Massachusetts has advanced its own data privacy bill. Each independent piece of legislation could impact consumer-oriented health apps that don't fall under HIPAA -- leading digital health companies to worry about mounting costs to navigate the regulatory thicket and declining revenue for resale of consumer data, Mohana reports.

CIBO, the science-based technology company that supports growers and enterprises on their journey to regenerative agriculture, is issuing an open invitation to partner with enterprises and organizations interested in submitting a project proposal to the USDA's new Climate-Smart Commodities Partnership Initiative. The initiative, part of the USDA's Climate Smart Agriculture & Forestry Project, includes a $1 billion fund for applicants but requires certain criteria to be met upon application. The CSAF partnership initiative will fund pilot projects that promote and incentivize on-farm conservation practices that sequester carbon or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In order to apply for funding, all applications must include the ability to measure/quantify, monitor, and verify the carbon and GHG benefits associated with those practices, which is where CIBO uniquely supports partnership project proposals. CIBO's proprietary technology platform provides detailed impact quantification, reporting, and verification (MRV) of farming practices using AI-enhanced computer vision from satellite imagery, advanced, mechanistic crop modeling, and scaled cloud infrastructure that combines to deliver in real-time a current carbon footprint, the future carbon impact of practices, and historic and in-season management practices at a field or portfolio level.

UNDP has launched a new digital strategy to enhance its support to governments in shifting to this transforming environment including by building digital capacity within the organization. The AI strategy of UNDP seeks to increase the understanding of digital technologies and how they can be used to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. As well as risks and trade-offs that come with them. On the other hand, it is also working to manage the unique ethical issues that can rise from deploying AI in an international development context. The AI readiness tool for stakeholders is building on UNDP's Digital Readiness Assessment piloted.

One of the co-founders, Martin Nisser, a PhD student from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), explains the digital literacy and self-efficacy focused objectives: "Some of the women haven't had the opportunity to work with a computer for 25 years, and aren't yet accustomed to using the internet. We're working with them to build their capabilities with these modern tools in order to prepare them for life outside," says Nisser. Even for the students who became incarcerated more recently, it can be difficult to keep up with the fast pace of technological advances, since technical programs in correctional facilities are few and far-between. This scarcity of preparatory programs undoubtedly contributes to high and rising recidivism rates: More often than not, those who are released from prison eventually return. While working at TEJI, Nisser had a fortuitous meeting with his two co-founders, Marisa Gaetz (a PhD student from MIT's Department of Mathematics) and Emily Harburg (co-founder of Brave Initiatives, a nonprofit that develops coding bootcamps for young women).

European software major SAP and startup accelerator Techstars will invest in at least 10 artificial intelligence (AI) startups every year through its SAP.iO Foundry in Berlin. SAP.iO is an initiative of the tech giant to create an ecosystem of products and software by working with entrepreneurs. In 2017, five Indian startups were among 10 companies selected by SAP.iO's AI accelerator's first batch. "We are looking at enterprise applications from startups that are founded around a year ago," Alexa Gorman, global vice-president of SAP.iO Fund, told VCCircle over a telephone call from Berlin. "By restricting our focus, we can add value in terms of marketing assistance and mentorship for these startups."

Each day we read about amazing technology breakthroughs, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). But if AI is so great, why are these breathtaking technological achievements not matched with soaring productivity and economic growth? Or, to paraphrase an old jibe: If the economy is so smart, why aren't we all rich? After all, we live among astonishing examples of potentially transformative new technologies that could greatly increase productivity and economic welfare. As noted in the 2014 book, "The Second Machine Age," leaps in AI, machine learning and, more recently in areas such as image recognition, abound.

"Scientia potentia est" is a Latin adage that means "knowledge is power". This phrase is commonly attributed to Sir Francis Bacon and its most common modern interpretation is'information is power'. There has never been a time in human history when this phrase was more relevant, as each day humanity creates over 2 Quintillion bytes of data. This reality has manufactured the big data boom that the world is currently experiencing. All of this data has to be processed, analyzed and stored in some way.