We treat athletes as if they are real-life superheroes that overcome physical challenges to achieve greatness in their respective sports. Today's athletes are physically faster, stronger and more agile than the generation before, but something is wrong. We have not made the same progress in improving athletes' mental skills and health as we have physical skills and health. The focus of any individual or team sport is to maximize player performance. In our sports culture, we are obsessed with team and player statistics using traditional measures in each sport.

Recent revelations about how social media giants misuse our personal data for profit have elevated the issue of privacy among Americans, but what if this data also included our personal health records? Every day, millions of Americans use Fitbits and other personal activity trackers, often at the prompting of employers who provide incentives to wear the devices. But as these individuals' data profiles are shared -- with their companies, as well as with health care providers that oversee corporate wellness programs -- there is significant risk that the data could later be used to identify who they are and link their identities to detailed medical profiles that can be bought by companies, researchers, or anyone else. Activity-tracking device manufacturers have long maintained that sharing data stripped of identifying information poses no privacy risks. But with funding from the University of California-Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, we demonstrated that by using artificial intelligence, it is possible to identify individuals by learning daily patterns in footstep data (like that collected by activity trackers, smart watches and smart phones) and correlating it to demographic data.

In a partnership with Apple, health insurance company Aetna announced Tuesday a new app and wellness program that will track and offer personalized health recommendations to its customers, and grant them the option to redeem points for gift cards or toward payments for an Apple Watch by meeting activity goals and other health-related challenges. In short, you can expect a free Apple Watch as long as you're taking care of yourself. To participate in Aetna's program, which kicks off later this spring, users will need either an iPhone 5S or newer, or an Apple Watch Series 1 or newer. The announced Attain app -- which resembles Apple's in-house apps -- will provide personalized activity goals based on your age, sex, and weight, and challenge you to engage in activities like getting more sleep. It turns your activity and challenges into points, which can be redeemed for items like gift cards should you not want to put them toward the payment of your Apple Watch.

According to OECD predictions, exceeding budgets on health spending remains an issue for OECD countries. Maintaining today's healthcare systems and funding future medical advances will be difficult without major reforms. Public expenditure on health and long-term care in OECD countries is set to increase from around 6 percent of GDP today to almost 9 percent in 2030 and 14 percent by 2060. Moreover, in 2011 a study of the World Economic Forum estimated that the global economic impact of the five leading chronic diseases -- cancer, diabetes, mental illness, heart disease, and respiratory disease -- could reach $47 trillion over the next 20 years. The estimated cumulative output loss caused by the illnesses, which together already kill more than 36 million people a year and are predicted to kill tens of millions more in the future, represents around 4 percent of annual global GDP over the coming two decades, the study said.

Predicting the future is hardly a precise science, but it's possible to identify macro trends by paying close attention to what's happening in an industry. Here's what a handful of founders, executives and investors are seeing in their crystal balls. "Many companies which raised large sums based solely on buzzword-laden pitch decks will fail. When the dust settles, the companies using machine learning to solve focused problems using proprietary data sets will remain. We believe the most exciting of this crop will be coaching cloud companies."

The decline of a single company culture, a surge in freelance workers, a workforce reshaped by artificial intelligence, and a 13% leap in productivity for companies that invest in employee wellness programs, are among the key trends that will define the state of the workforce in the Middle East over the next two decades. The last of these trends could generate as much as a 0.1% to 0.3% uplift in the GDP of a typical OECD country, according to predictions by UBS. Jürg Zeltner, President of Wealth Management at UBS, said: "The workplace is becoming far more complex. The relationship between employee and employer looks set to change significantly in the coming years, especially among workers who are currently only a short way into their careers. It is important that we prepare for these changes. Not only could they impact us, but also a number of our clients who run and own their businesses."

Employer wellness programs can gather medical information from employees and spouses -- so long as financial incentives or penalties don't exceed 30 percent of the annual cost for an individual in the company's group health plan, according to final rules issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Monday. Although such penalties or incentives could run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the programs are considered voluntary -- and therefore legal, the commission said. The rules seek to ensure "wellness programs actually promote good health and are not just used to collect or sell sensitive medical information about employees and family members or to impermissibly shift health insurance costs to them," the EEOC said. But the final rules drew immediate concern from some groups. Jennifer Mathis, director of programs for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, says the new rule rolls back protections in existing law.