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Cancer is on the rise in Africa, with the World Health Organization predicting that by 2020, it will take the lives of one million people a year across the continent. The most common forms of the disease in Africa -- breast, cervical and prostate cancers -- are also the most treatable, but drugs have been in scarce supply, and the price of treatment remains a huge obstacle...
Technology is transforming how we provide medical care, improve diagnostics, share information, and extend the reach of public health. From disposable syringes that deliver a calibrated dose of medicine before self-destructing to 3-D printers that recreate the facial structures of combat-injured veterans, seemingly intractable problems are being met with cutting-edge solut...
Cybersecurity is increasingly a major concern of modern life, coloring everything from the way we vote to the way we drive to the way our health care records are stored. Yet online security is beset by threats from nation-states and terrorists and organized crime, and our favorite social media sites are drowning in conspiracy theories and disinformation. How do we reset th...
What if technology could read and respond to emotions the way humans do? It turns out that it already can, and in this session you’ll see a mind-bending live demonstration of software that recognizes our feelings based on facial cues. We’ll also explore how everyday tech like text messaging can get in the way of important social connection, but also how applications like C...
A cyberattack can disrupt a hospital’s oxygen supply, disable cancer-fighting radiation therapy, divert emergency vehicles, and force surgeries to be canceled. While data security has received a lot of attention, the risk that hackers will hold basic healthcare services hostage has far greater implications for patient safety. Ransomware attacks have already struck hundreds...
Today’s kids are facing a mental health crisis unlike any before them, with rates of severe loneliness, anxiety, and depressive episodes reaching new heights. It’s an urgent concern with far-reaching impacts, especially for those in historically marginalized communities who too often do not have access to the help they need. How can organizations leverage their scale to ma...
Once associated mostly with IV poles and standard-issue hospital gowns, health-related design has entered a new era with creative and functional products that observe, inform, soothe, and connect. A stuffed animal named Chemo Duck helps children with cancer express their emotions; new digital health records give nurses in Rwanda the tools to provide quality care and improv...
Thinking about the far-off future isn’t just an exercise in intellectual curiosity. It’s a practical skill that, as new research reveals, has a direct neurological link to greater creativity, empathy, and optimism. In this session from master game designer and acclaimed futurist Jane McGonigal, you’ll learn three practical habits that will increase the power of your imagin...
For decades, diet and exercise fads have promised to shrink waistlines, build muscle, detoxify, and so on. But evidence is mounting that there’s no one diet or routine that works for everyone. Researchers are experimenting with AI to determine personalized nutrition algorithms based on an individual’s health, lifestyle, physiology, and immune system. Christie Aschwanden, a...
Gun violence in the US is a public health epidemic. With partisan battles currently making state and federal legislative solutions elusive, private sector trendsetters are quietly exploring other avenues of opportunity. The Smart Tech Challenges Foundation funds research to advance biometric identification and other security technologies that allow only authorized users to...
A.I. can find meaningful patterns in otherwise unintelligible noise, so scientists are starting to wonder: Can A.I. help humans interpret animal sounds? Scientist Karen Bakker and machine-learning expert Aza Raskin talk to “Unexplainable” podcast host Noam Hassenfeld about remarkable scientific discoveries and possibilities for interspecies communication.
Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin are deeply concerned about the deployment of tools like ChatGPT. As co-founders of the Center for Human Technology, they are on a mission to close the gap between what the world hears publicly about A.I. and what the people closest to the risks and harms inside A.I. labs are telling them.
Robert Mueller made clear the bottom line of his investigation: Russia attacked our democracy — and, as he said, every American should focus on that. Instead, recent news reports reveal that the Department of Homeland Security wasn't even allowed to bring up the threat of election attacks with President Trump. As candidates hit the 2020 campaign trail, what should the Unit...
A clean energy revolution is underway here, and across the globe. And it’s high time, considering electricity and heat are responsible for a staggering one-third of global emissions. Coal plants are shutting down, the costs of solar and wind technologies are rapidly falling, and a recent bipartisan bill looks to reestablish the United States as a leader in nuclear energy....
Facebook is at the center of some of the most important questions in American life: How can we distinguish truth from fiction online? How can society develop fairly in an era of artificial intelligence? Can technology bring us together, or will it drive us apart? Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook, will discuss all these questions and more with Nicholas Thompson,...
In his new book, Deep Medicine, Eric Topol – cardiologist, geneticist, digital medicine researcher – claims that artificial intelligence can put the humanity back into medicine. By freeing physicians from rote tasks, such as taking notes and performing medical scans, AI creates space for the real healing that occurs between a doctor who listens and a patient who needs to b...
America’s heartland is quietly upending traditional notions of how cities work to deliver on their promise of shared prosperity. This means local governments, philanthropy, and the private sector have to work together and work differently. Jennifer Bradley of the Center for Urban Innovation and Rip Rapson of the Kresge Foundation discuss how leaders from Detroit, Fresno, M...
George Soros said social media platforms are the largest threat to democracy. Marc Benioff said we should regulate them like tobacco. Why? Every day, platforms like Facebook and YouTube point their supercomputers at two billion people’s minds to capture their attention, and in the process create social harms that include digital addiction, amplifying genocide, political po...
Each year, new technology transforms how we connect, how we move, and how we pay. But nearly two billion people remain “unbanked.” So do financial technology innovations decrease or deepen the divide between the have and the have-nots? As economies become increasingly digital, what are the stopgaps we need to deploy to protect and empower all? From crypto to credit to port...
Meet Shimon, the marimba-playing robot that can improvise with fluency and skill exceeding that of most professional musicians. This atypical frontman’s band isn’t your average performance group either: Shimon’s band of humans hails not from a conservatory, but from the Center for Music Technology at Georgia Tech. And did we mention the drummer lays the rhythm with a bioni...