Across all these scenarios, IT fundamentals--like remote access, unified login systems, and interoperability across platforms--are being handled behind the scenes and consolidated into streamlined, user-friendly solutions. The way employees experience these tools, collectively known as the digital employee experience (DEX), can be a key component of achieving business outcomes: Deloitte finds that companies investing in frontline-focused digital tools see a 22 % boost in worker productivity, a doubling in customer satisfaction, and as much as a 25 % increase in profitability. As digital tools become everyday fixtures in operational contexts, companies face both opportunities and hurdles--and the stakes are only rising as emerging technologies like AI become more sophisticated. The organizations best positioned for an AI-first future are crafting thoughtful strategies to ensure digital systems align with the realities of daily work--and placing people at the heart of the whole process. Despite promising returns, many companies still face a last-mile challenge in delivering usable, effective tools to the frontline.

Data science is one of those things that experienced a tremendous popularity increase in a short time. This is an identifying characteristic of hype. Some might even think that data science is a hype that awaits its dreadful end. I want to state my opinion first so that you know what to expect in the rest of the article. Data science is absolutely not hype.

COVID-19 has exposed and accelerated many trends of globalization. Development actors find themselves up against a host of risks and challenges that no organization can resolve on their own. Addressing the health and economic fallout from the pandemic, vaccine development, climate change, financial contagion, infectious diseases, forest and biodiversity loss, overfishing, antimicrobial resistance, governance of artificial intelligence, and many other risks and challenges call for effective collaboration across national and organizational boundaries. International development organizations need to collaborate and act collectively to develop effective solutions. Convening, when successful, achieves such collective action.