Technological advancements in the medical field are vital to improving the way patients receive care. In many cases, there is a need for more resources to be directed towards patient care. But the current reality for many patients, especially children with chronic illnesses, is that medical professionals and families are often forced to carry a heavy load in caring for them. To address this need within the healthcare sector, there has been an uptick in the size of Australia's medtech startup community, with the NSW government expecting the industry to create 28,000 jobs and add AU$18 billion in gross domestic product to Australia by 2025. Among the medtech startups in Australia is ikkiworks, which developed a companion robot that helps soothe and monitor the vital signs of children with chronic illness while they are away from the hospital.

As the use of artificial intelligence applications – and machine learning – grows within businesses, government, educational institutions, and other organizations, so does the likelihood of bias. Researchers have studied and found significant racial bias in facial recognition technology, for example, and in particular in the underlying algorithms. That alone is a massive problem. When you more broadly consider the role AI and ML will play in societal and business contexts, the problem of AI bias becomes seemingly limitless – one that IT leaders and others need to pay close attention to as they ramp up AI and ML implementations. AI bias often begins with people, which runs counter to the popular narrative that we'll all soon be controlled by AI robot overlords.

Mars One Ventures, the company behind an improbable plan to colonize the red planet via global reality show, confirmed last week that it is now in bankruptcy. News reports of this demise brought on a whipping storm of schadenfreude: The "Fyre Festival of Space"--as several outlets called it--had been canceled before liftoff. "It was terribly mismanaged, shortsighted and possibly even fraudulent," said the New York Post. "The false promise is over," added Forbes. Forget the fact that Mars One failed; I mean, we all knew that it would fail.

Twice: Since being launched in September of 2011, China's Tiangong-1 space station has only hosted a pair of crewed missions. There won't be a third because that big ole' hunk of space metal will come crashing down into the Earth's atmosphere sometime between now and the middle of April. "Months": That's how long the Trump administration has reportedly been working on plans to allow federal agencies to track and shoot down civilian drones. And like most of the policies set forth by this administration, the drone ruling could be implemented tomorrow, next week, four months from now or not at all, depending exclusively on the whims of the President. Because that's how good governance is supposed to work.

Long ago I lived in Santa Cruz, California. Almost every morning I would throw on a wet suit, grab my surfboard out of the garage, and head to the rocky cliffs just a few blocks from my house. I would descend a well-worn path to the ocean below, paddle out to the break, and spend hours surrounded by kelp beds and barking sea lions, catching waves, feeling exhilarated, and floating on my board, a world away from the troubles on land. I have a family now and have lived for years in the generally wave-less realms of New York City. But a few months ago I suddenly felt that old hunger again. I wanted to race out to the garage and grab a board.