meetyour digital twin playing defense ......purpose: the role of technologyinnovation in...

SUPPLEMENT GRATUIT AU #22619 DU QUOTIDIEN”LES ECHOS” DU 23 JANVIER 2018NE PEUT ETRE VENDU SEPAREMENT

#4 – January 2018 – World Economic Forum EditionDistributed in Davos and in Les Echos #22619

MEET YOUR DIGITAL TWINEVERYONE ANDEVERYTHINGWILL SOON HAVEA DIGITAL IDENTITY

TINKERING WITH NATUREQ & A WITH CRISPR-CAS9CO-INVENTOREMMANUELCHARPENTIER

PLAYING DEFENSENEW CYBER CENTRESEEKS TO THWARTDIGITAL INFILTRATORS

PREPARINGFORTHEFOURTHINDUSTRIALREVOLUTION

THE IOTA FOUNDATIONIOTA is overseen by the IOTA Foun-dation, a non-profit organisationdedicated to building sustainableecosystems around IOTA, develo-ping the DLT technology for reallife applications and maintainingit license-free for all developers towork with. The Foundation gathers

a team of world leading experts inthe respective fields and sets up de-dicated working groups with com-panies and research institutions inthose sectors to share know-how,initiate experimentation and proac-tively engage the startup communi-ty, innovators and developers.

THE BACKBONE OF THE IOT

IOTA is a revolutionary new transac-tional settlement and data transferlayer for the Internet of Things. It’sbased on a new distributed ledger,the Tangle, which overcomes theinefficiencies of current Blockchaindesigns.IOTA is also the missing puzzle pie-ce for the Machine Economy to fullyemerge and reach its desired poten-tial. It is envisioned to be the pub-lic, permissionless backbone for theInternet of Things, that enables trueinteroperability between all devices.

ZERO FEES - INFINITELY SCALABLE

Unlike blockchains, which are inhe-rently limited by the bottleneck ofblock size and rigid chain, whichleads to congestion and high feeswhen usage goes up, IOTA’s Tanglegetsmore efficient themore activityoccurs on the ledger. Perhaps moreimportantly, because the Tangle eli-minates the requirement of minersand stakers, newly mined units ofcurrency and transaction fees donot need to be extracted from thesystem to pay validation fees. Theresult is that IOTA has zero fees.

DATA INTEGRITY

IOTA’s main features (in its currentform) are feeless micropayments,secure data transfer and data an-choring. Combined with IOTA’s sca-lability and partition tolerance, the-se two features allow a plethora ofuse cases to be derived which areonly possible with IOTA.

The main focus of IOTA is the Inter-net of Things, with machines pay-ing each other autonomously forresources, services and/or access.

INTRODUCING IOTAINTRODUCING IOTA

Tangle

Txs

Net

wor

kCa

paci

ty

Blockchain

www.iota.org / [email protected]

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Will the Internet of Things set us free or lock us up?That is thequestionpostedbyPhilipN.Howard, aprofessorat theOxfordInternet Institute inhisbookPaxTechnica. Howardasks ifweshould fearorwelcome the Internet’s evolution.The Internet ofThings is the rapidlygrowingnetworkofhumansaswell as factories, cars, animals, airplanes,and everyday objects like sneakers that are now connected and able tocommunicate over the Internet.Howard envisions a new world ofer emerging from this greattransformation in the technologies aroundus, onehe calls PaxTechnica.Thishighlyconnecteddigitalworldhas the immensepotential toempowercitizens, making government transparent and broadening informationaccess. Howard cautions, however, that privacy threats are enormousandthat the InternetofThingscouldbeusedtorepressandcontrolpeople.Yet,healsoargues that ifweengagewith thegovernmentsandbusinessesbuilding the Internet of Things we have a chance to build a new kind ofInternet and a more open society. The same can be said for all of thetechnologies driving theFourth IndustrialRevolution.Theneed toapplysystems thinking to AI, digital identity, cyber security, urban mobility,precisionmedicine, and the future of foodandproductionwill be on theagenda at theWorld Economic Forum’s annual conference inDavos thisyear. And rightly so. It is up to all of us to take responsibility for craftingthewayforward,beingveryconsciousofallof theconsequences, intendedand unintended, of adopting new technologies.

ByJenniferL.SchenkerEditor-in-Chief, The Innovator

THE BRIEF

GUEST ESSAY BY KLAUS SCHWAB, WEF’SFOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN

COVER STORYPREPARING FOR THE FOURTHINDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Q&A WITH KAY FIRTH-BUTTERFIELD,HEAD OF AI AT THE WORLD ECONOMICFORUM

THE DIGITIZATION OF EVERYTHING

THE 30 WORLD ECONOMIC FORUMTECHNOLOGY PIONEERS TO MEET INDAVOS

PLAYING DEFENSE

REFORMING FOOD PRODUCTION

Q&A WITH EMMANUELLECHARPENTIER, CO-INVENTOR OFCRISPR-CAS9

INNOVATION WITH IMPACT

FISHING FOR INNOVATION

PERSONALIZED MEDICINE

REVAMPING RETAIL

RETHINKINGURBANMOBILITY

THEFUTUREOFMANUFACTURING

GUESTESSAY:LEADERSHIPINTHEAGEOFAI

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TABLEOF CONTENTS

— P.03

P.04 — THE INNOVATOR

THE BRIEF

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming the“Motherof allTechnologies.” It feedsother importanttechnologies (IoT, robotics, blockchain…) and getsfed by others (quantum computing, chips…)Artificial Intelligence has become a huge buzzwordsince 2016/2017, with spectacular Star Wars-likeachievements on the one hand (AlphaGoZero) andhorrorscenariosà laElonMuskandStephenHawking(who paint a very dark picture, where machinestake full control over mankind) on the other. In2018, AI will enter its industrial phase: it will becombinedwith existing technologies and hardwaresolutions, incorporated into product developmentandproductionprocesses, and thuswill haveamuchbigger impact onday-to-day business for companiesas well as more noticeable implications for society.Yet,manyof thecurrentusecasesstill relyonrelativelysimpledeep learning technologies (backpropagation,a30-year-old technology thathad lacked recognitiondue to slow computers and little data availability)where amachine is fedwith hundreds of images torecognize a cat, for example. This is alsowhat fostersthe strengthof theAmericanandChinese techgiantsbecause the current technologies are so dependenton data, making people doubt the importance of

The Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School AI Initiative’s civic debate is a unique opportunityfor business leaders to contribute their perspective onAI governance to aglobal conversation. The Innovatoris amedia partner of the initiative,which gives participants anopenand collaborative opportunity to discusswhat characterizes the riseofAI, its drivers,mainactors, and its implications in termsof employment, security,warfare, healthcare, transportation and regulation, amongothers. “Since this collective effortwill culminatein thepublicationof reports submitted toahost of governments, parliaments, and international organizationswehave been closelyworkingwith, the debate is anunprecedented effort to shape policy onAI at the globallevel and a chance for stakeholders to be heard,” says Co-founder and director Cyrus Hodes. “The AIrevolution holds massive transformational power. The civic debate is a collective effort that gives businessleaders an accessible platform to understand what the AI revolutions means for them, as well as tangiblyshape thewayAI impacts society, nations, private sector and citizens.” The platform is open to everyone andaccessible through www.aicivicdebate.org

CharlesÉdouardBouéeRoland BergerCEO

12+AI-RELATED SESSIONS ARE ON THEAGENDATHIS YEAR IN DAVOS

2,500CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AIINITIATIVE’S DEBATE TO DATE,INCLUDING VOTESAND PROPOSALS

AI’S IMPACT ONBUSINESS

AChanceForBusinessExecutivesToWeighInonAIGovernance

the actual, massive revolution that is going on. Asweenterthis“industrial”phase,alotofdisappointmentis to be expected, similar to the Iinternet era… yetthewinnerswillwinbig.Companieswill gobankruptdue to a lack of customerswhile the tech giantswillcontinuetoprintmoneywithtraditionaldeep-learningAI for awhile.However, contrary topopular opinion,deep learning is not the only technology. As we aregradually moving from deep learning technologiestomachine reasoning and genetic algorithms, therewill also beprogress in thedevelopment of personal,portable AI devices which, in the longer run, willhave the power to disrupt the current balance.These new personal assistants will not necessarilybe connected to the Internet but will feature newprotocols and peer-to-peer technologies. They willbe intuitive, relatively inexpensive for consumers –thusamassproduct–andable toprotect theirprivacy.Theywill re-empowerconsumersandhelp traditionalcompanies regain direct access to them (e.g. anapartment ownerwill be able to connect directly tohis short-term tenant whereas Airbnb manageseverything forhimtoday).Hence,currentmonopolieswill be shaken up. The end of the tech monoliths,and the endof platforms such asUber/Airbnbmightbe nearer than we think…! The development ofthese AI devices might well take up to 10 years –just like the evolution from mobile to smartphone.But we should definitely keep an eye on them in2018.

DAVOS TECH TALK

THE MERGER OF MAN ANDMACHINERachel, a Digital Personal Assistant fromSoul Machines and IBM Watson that is able tosee you, listen to you, detect your emotions andrespond in a human-like manner will be a starparticipant in a private event at Davosorganized by the Swiss tech company WISeKey.It is just one example of the buzz at the annualmeeting around the blurring lines between manand machine.

DISRUPTIONS IN MANUFACTURINGCOULD CREATE A TWO-SPEED WORLDAreportbytheWorldEconomicForum,developedwithA.T.Kearney,assesseshowwell-positionedglobal economiesaretobenefit fromchanges inproductionbeingdrivenbytheFourth IndustrialRevolution. It concludesthat90%ofparticipatingcountriesfromLatinAmerica, theMiddleEast,AfricaandEurasiahavea lowlevelof readinessandsuggestshowtoremedythesituation.

LAUNCH OF THE WORLD ECONOMICFORUM’S CENTRE FOR CYBERSECURITYCybersecurity threats are outpacing theabilities of governments and companies,according to Cyber Resilience: Playbook forPublic-Private Collaboration, a new report bythe World EconomicForumincollaborationwithTheBoston Consulting Group. Its releaseprecedes thelaunchofanewGlobalCentreforCybersecurity at the Forum’s 2018 annualmeeting.

To get technology news in context every week, subscribe to our newsletter : http://innovator.news

— P.05

WHAT ISKEEPING CEOSUPAT NIGHT?PWC will once again release itsGlobal CEO Survey during theannual meeting of the WorldEconomic Forum.The survey results are based oninterviews with 1,293 CEOs in 87countries.

TAKEAWAYS

of CEOsare concerned or extremely concerned

about the speedof technological change

of CEOs believe changes in coretechnologies of production or service

provision will be verydisruptive to their businesses over

the next five years

of CEOs are extremelyconcerned about

cyber threats versus24% in 2017

76%

32%

40%

of CEOs are extremelyconcerned about

the availabilityof key digital skills in the workforce

76%

GUEST ESSAY

who created them will be firmly embedded within the many technologiesthat surround us and which have become part of us. Our understanding ofprevious industrial revolutions is that, while they create huge wealth andopportunity, they also create significant harm: many people miss out on thebenefits entirely, and it is most often those populations with the least voiceorpowerwhobear thenegative consequences. It is thereforenot goodenoughfor us to leave the evolution of our technological future to chance, or to trustthat market forces will create the future we want. Instead, we need to talk,think and act today. That’s themotivation behindmy new book, Shaping theFourth Industrial Revolution. It seeks to accelerate the way we understand,discuss and make decisions around emerging technologies. It outlines themost important dynamics of today’s technological revolution, highlights im-portant stakeholders that are often overlooked in our discussion of the latestscientific breakthroughs, anddrawsuponmore than200 leading global thin-kers to explore 12 different technology areas key to the future of humanity.

Agile and EngagedThinking and acting around the Fourth Industrial Revolution demands anew type of leadership – an approachwe call “systems leadership.” Systemsleadership in this context doesn’t just mean leading on the design of thetechnologies themselves, but also acting as a leader on how they are go-verned and on the values they exhibit in how they impact people from allbackgrounds. Newwaysof thinkingandactingare required fromall stakehol-ders, including individuals, business executives, social influencers and po-licymakers.Governments need to adopt the concept of “agile governance” of technolo-gies, matching the nimbleness and adaptiveness of the technologies them-selves and of the private-sector actors integrating them. Thismeans thinkingnot just about what new rules might be needed, but finding entirely newways to create and update rules over time in collaboration with other sec-tors. For businesses, the most important strategy is to experiment more,while simultaneously investing in people. Only by directly experimentingwith technologies can organizations see for themselves what they can do.Given that experimentation is best done by those closest to a business, thisalso means making concerted efforts to upskill employees and embracingan entrepreneurial mindset. Finally, for citizens, the most important actionis to be engaged on these issues,making their voices heard as voters, consu-mers, employees, members of civil society organizations and communityleaders. Those of us lucky enough to be alive today have a responsibility tofuture generations to ensure they can live and find meaning in a sustai-nable, inclusive, technologically-driven future.We should therefore all be part of building aspirational visions of the fu-ture, influencinghow technologies are developedandadopted.Aswe changethe way we talk, we change the way we think and create new opportuni-ties to act. Let’s act, together, now, to make those aspirational visions of thefuture real for as many people as possible, all around the world.Klaus Schwab’s newbook, Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution, wasreleased on January 15, 2018, and is available here:wef.ch/shaping4IR

In the 47 years since I founded the World Economic Forum,I have witnessed first-hand that whenwe change the way we talk, we beginto think differently too. Likewise, changing thewaywe think leads to changesin the way we act. This is true for all of us. The language we use and theway we think about the world shapes our subsequent behavior.It’s therefore extremely gratifying to see that, since the publication of my2016 book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, we have started to change theway we talk about technology and its impact on the world. More and morepeople are becoming aware of the power of emerging technologies to trans-form our economies, our societies and even who we are as human beings. .It’s commonnow to ask howartificial intelligencemight be used to influenceus, whether cryptocurrencies are more effective for promoting social inclu-sion or criminal activity, or to worry about what kinds of skills we need todevelop in order to thrive in an era when technologies are both more per-vasive andmore powerful. The term “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” hasbecome common parlance, conveying the magnitude of the changes un-derway.The challenge, however, is that we don’t have a decade to slowly shift mind-sets before moving to act on the issues surfaced by the Fourth IndustrialRevolution. The speed, scale and scope of change that is underway today,coupled with the fact that entrepreneurs, companies and policy makers arealready creating rules, norms, techniques and infrastructure around newtechnologies, means that in 10 years it will be too late. The structure of newtechnologieswill bemore or less set, and the perspectives and values of those


ACallToAction

ByKlausSchwabFounderandExecutiveChairman,WorldEconomicForum

WE NEED

Y U“If youwant to be a startup billionaire, you have to solve a billion peoples‘ problems”Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord MBE, Head of Bayer Foundations

We believe in the game changing power of innovation – we support pioneers who apply tech innovations to humanity’sbiggest challenges around heath and food.

In 2018 we are scouting for Startups, Innovators, and Impact Innovations particularly focused on agriculture and foodproduction for our seed funding programs and new book "The Beauty of Impact - Food". We are searching for innovationsthat solve the food crisis and other global grand health-related challenges that we can promote and fund to bring to therising billions in need around the world.

The next opportunity to meet the Foundations CEO Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord and Open Innovation Hub Director and SpeakerMarc Buckley is at the 48 Forward Conference in Munich on February 22, and on March 9 at SXSW in Austin, Texas.

Seeking funding yourself for a crazy “innovation-4-good” idea?Get in touch with us at [email protected]. More Info: www.bayer-foundations.com

PREPARINGFORTHEFOURTHINDUSTRIALREVOLUTION

— P.09

Impossible Foods, a World Economic Forum TechnologyPioneer, makes a plant-based patty that cooks, smells, tastes and even“bleeds” like real beef. It is one of a growing number of food startupsthreatening the future of the $90 billion meat industry.If plant-based protein production facilities and labs that manufacture meatfrom animal stem cells take the place of farms, feed lots and slaughterhousesthe meat value chain could be dramatically transformed.So could the environment.Indeed, if only 10% to 30 % of the world’spopulation switches from eating real meat to alternative proteins it wouldnot only free up to 400 million hectares of land (about the equivalent of1,000 sports stadiums ), it would do away with up to 960 megatons of Co2emissions and save up to 12% of total fresh water used by agriculture,according to a World Economic Forum report entitled “Innovation With aPurpose: The Role Of Technology Innovation In Accelerating Food SystemsTransformation” scheduled to be released during the annual meetingJanuary 23-26. (See the related story on pages 34 and 35.) It is just oneexample of how emerging technologies driven by the Fourth IndustrialRevolution are disrupting industries and bringing about change with wide-ranging consequences. So what is driving the revolution? A combinationof technologies that include Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificialintelligence and machine learning, blockchain, autonomous vehicles,

advanced robotics, additive manufacturing, advanced materials andnanotechnologies, advances in science such as next-generationbiotechnologies and genomics, and new energy technologies.

Innovation With a Purpose“These advances are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds inways that create both huge promise and potential peril,” says a Forumdescription of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “The speed, breadth anddepth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop,how organizations create value and even what it means to be human.”The impact is driven home by clicking on a transformation map on theForum’s website (reproduced in The Innovator on page 8), which showsall of the sectors touched by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The map isbased on a knowledge tool recently launched by the Forum to help usersexplore and make sense of the complex and interlinked forces behindtransformation. (https://www.weforum.org/about/transformation-maps)The sweeping changes ahead require what Forum Founder and ExecutiveChairman Klaus Schwab refers to as “systemic leadership” in his new book

COVER STORY

— Emerging technologies are disrupting many industries, bringing about rapid, large-scalechange with wide-ranging consequences, requiring systems thinking and increased collaborationbetween stakeholders.By Jennifer L. Schenker


“Shaping The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” which was released onJanuary 15. “The scale, complexity and urgency of the challenges facingthe world today call for leadership and action that are both responsive andresponsible,” Schwab writes in his book. “If ‘values-driven individuals’across all sectors work together we have the chance to shape a futurewhere the most powerful technologies contribute to more inclusive, fairand prosperous communities.” Food production is a case in point. Todayit is badly in need of transformation. “Billions of people are poorlynourished, millions of farmers live at subsistence level, enormous amountsof food go to waste and poor farming practices are taking a toll on theenvironment,” says the “InnovationWith a Purpose” report released at theannual meeting.

Ensuring No One is Left BehindTechnology innovations, combined with other interventions, can play animportant role in enabling and accelerating food systems transformation,helping achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,the report says. It points to areas such as gene-editing tools andmicrobiomes that could give farmers the potential to meet an expected40% surge in demand for food by 2050. (See the story on pages 34 and35 and The Innovator’s interview with Emmanuelle Charpentier, the co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tools, on pages 30 and 31.)“But achieving a true transformation of food systems requires a holisticapproach,” the report concludes, “one engaging all stakeholders anddeploying a wide array of actions such as improved policy, increasedinvestment, expanded infrastructure, farmer capacity-building, consumerbehavior change and improved resource management.” Precisionmedicineis another area in which the Fourth Industrial Revolution promises to havea positive impact on health and well-being. It could usher in a new agein which medicine can take into account genetic, environmental, andlifestyle factors to treat people more effectively. But collaboration isnecessary to ensure that this rosy future is evenly distributed. Among theissues that will be explored at the Forum’s annual meeting is how to makesure populations from developing countries don’t get left behind. (See thestory on pages 38 and 39.) Avoiding a two-speed society is also a concernwhen it comes to technologies transforming production. The global

consultancy Capgemini projects that smart factories have the potential toadd $500 billion to $1.5 trillion in value to the global economy withinfive years. But a new report by the World Economic Forum reveals thatonly 25 countries are in the best position to gain as production systemsstand on the brink of exponential change. Unless action is taken LatinAmerican, Middle Eastern, African and Eurasian countries could be leftbehind. (See the story on pages 46 and 47.)Governments must work not just to protect their economies but also tosafeguard public interest as new technologies are put into place. Todaycontrol over people’s personal data and profit from its use and sale are inthe control of a few tech giants. The introduction of modern cryptographyand blockchain, an immutable digital ledger that allows third parties tovalidate that an attribute has not been altered or misrepresented, promisesto change that, giving each person a sovereign digital ID. Thisdevelopment, along with the assigning of secure identities to objects, isexpected to have far-reaching benefits for society and business, offeringgreater efficiency, security and trust. However, adoption of thesetechnologies touches on issues that cross sectors and industries, requiringcooperation between companies, government and civil society. (See thestory on pages 16-20.)The introduction of autonomous vehicles onto city streets is also a public-

COVER STORY

DIGITALIDENTITYBlockchain and modern encryptiontechnologies promise to enableeveryone and everything to have aunique ID, creating significantbenefits, but first governments,companies and civil society mustagree on the path forward.

CYBERSECURITYCybersecurity threats are outpacingthe ability of governments andbusinesses to overcome them unlessall stakeholders begin to cooperate.

Security. (See the story on pages 24 to 26.) The Forum is also connectingwith industry, government, and civil society stakeholders on the impactof artificial intelligence. It has hired the respected expert Kay Firth-Butterfield to head up AI and Machine Learning at its new Center for TheFourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. She sees her role as helpingcompanies and countries to only commission and create ethical, human-centered and responsible AI. (See the interview on pages 214 and 15.)

Job Training for TomorrowWhile her efforts may go some way towards allaying worries that AI willrun amok, there is growing concern from all corners of society thatautomation will wreak havoc on the global workforce.The fears appear to be well-founded. Building on a January 2017 reporton automation, McKinsey Global Institute’s November report “Jobs Lost,Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions In A Time Of Automation,” evaluatesthe number and types of jobs that might be created under differentscenarios through 2030 and compares that to the jobs that could be lostto automation. It estimates that between 400 million and 800 million

sector – and not just a technology – issue. Cities should seize control oftheir transportation future rather than letting it be steered by for-profitcompanies launching disruptive services, according to the initial resultsof an autonomous car project in Boston, which are scheduled to bepresented at the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.To integrate innovative private and public transportation services, theForum recommends deploying a mobility platform that gives access tonew entrants while allowing local governments to control the system toensure it serves the broader needs of the community. (See the story onpages 42 and 43.) Cybersecurity also requires systems thinking becausethreats are outpacing the ability of governments and businesses toovercome them unless all stakeholders begin to cooperate, according toa new report by the Forum in collaboration with The Boston ConsultingGroup.To that end the Forum will announce the creation of a new Global Centreon Cybersecurity at the annual meeting Jan. 23-26. The Centre “will playa vital role in connecting industry, government, and civil societystakeholders to address some of the biggest challenges in cyber-security,”says Alan Cohn, Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global FutureCouncil on Cyber-security and a former director of EmergencyPreparedness and Response Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland

— P.11

PRODUCTIONSmart factories have the potentialto add $500 billion to $1.5 trillion invalue to the global economy withinfive years. But most LatinAmerican, Middle Eastern, Africanand Eurasian countries have a lowlevel of readiness, so there is adanger of creating a two-speedworld.

FOOD AND AGRICULTURETechnology innovations can play animportant role in enabling andaccelerating food systemstransformation, but only if allstakeholders are engaged and actionstaken.

MOBILITYIf autonomous vehicles or any otherdisruptive transportation servicesevolve in isolation, they could clog cityroads and cause a host of otherunintended consequences.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEBetween 400 million and 800 millionpeople around the world couldbe displaced by automation and willneed to find new jobs by 2030.Governments and enterprise needto step up to help with job training andreskilling.

P.12— THE INNOVATOR

COVER STORY

people around the globe could be displaced by automation and will needto find new jobs by 2030, based on its most rapid automation adoptionscenarios. While new jobs will be available, based onMcKinsey’s scenariosof future labor demand and the net impact of automation, people willhave to find their way into those new jobs. “The report is a call to action,”McKinsey senior partner Eric Hazan said in an interview, as the shift couldbe on a scale not seen since the transition of the labor force out ofagriculture in the early 1900s in the United States and Europe, and morerecently in China. “Due to AI automation, out of those displaced 75millionto 375 million people may need to switch occupational categories or learnnew skills by 2030,” says Hazan. “This is massive. Governments and largecompanies will need to work hand in hand to help people transitionsmoothly from one job to another and from one occupation to another.There is a considerable need for re-skilling and training and is seems thatnot a lot is being done.”

Anticipating the Impact of AutomationThe report predicts that categories with the highest percentage job growthgoing forward will include:— healthcare providers— professionals such as engineers, scientists, accountants, and analysts— IT professionals and other technology specialists— managers and executives, whose work cannot easily be replaced by

machines— educators, especially in emerging economies with young populations— “creatives,” a small but growing category of artists, performers, and

entertainers who will be in demand as rising incomes create moredemand for leisure and recreation

— builders and related professions, particularly in the scenario thatinvolves higher investments in infrastructure and buildings

— manual and service jobs in unpredictable environments, such ashome-health aides and gardeners

Companies have to anticipate the impact of automation on their workforce.“People inside companies need to be re-skilled, companies need to create

the conditions for that and this new way of working,” says Hazan.McKinsey’s study suggests that governments could craft policies that makeit easy for people to move jobs and professions by building digital jobsplatforms for those seeking employment and developing training programsthat focus on people rather than job categories. “There is a whole discussionthat needs to be had about whether government training programs are fitto the challenge, given the amount of training and re-skilling that needsto take place in the next 15 to 20 years,” says Hazan.As in every industrial revolution, people will lose their job and will needto find another one, he says. “The difference is that during the first andsecond industrial revolutions nobody was taking care of the people wholost their jobs. But we are now in a position as a society to help peopleanticipate the changes ahead and receive specific training.”Public education has to be overhauled to prepare people for the jobs of thefuture. And governments need to ensure there are sufficient investmentsin startups and the digital transformation of brick-and-mortar companies“because the new jobs, the ones we don’t imagine yet – will only appearif all of the traditional industries are investing in innovation andtechnology,” says Hazan. Given the challenges ahead, it is a good bet thatthe Fourth Industrial Revolution will continue to take center stage in Davosnot just this year but for years to come.

EricHazan,McKinsey Senior Partner

“DuetoAIautomation,outofthosedisplaced,75millionto375millionpeoplemayneedtoswitchoccupationalcategoriesor learnnewskillsby2030.This ismassive.Governmentsandlargecompanieswillneedtoworkhandinhandtohelppeopletransitionsmoothlyfromonejobtoanotherandfromoneoccupationtoanother.”

Artefact is an agency marryingconsulting and data. Can you presentthe different service offer of yourcompany?

Artefact’s offers can be categorized in 3main and complimentary pillars:• Marketing to optimise activation andcreative campaigns performancesrelying on Data and Automatisation

• Strategy and Data Science Consultingto make advertisers successful ina data-dependent environment andimprove brands intuitions by concreteand relevant data.

• Technologies to maximise productivityand allow each to take better decisionsby developing Artificial Intelligencesolutions and Data Lakes.

Most of the time, we accompany ourclients on all those projects to keepa global consistency in each of thosemarketing strategies.

Artefact has experienced animpressive evolution over the past twoyears. How do you explain this hyper-growth?

First of all, there is a very high demandfor global support from advertisers.We are experts in data, media andartificial intelligence. Furthermore ourorganisational methods favour the

excellence of our services. Internally,creative teams mix with digitalmarketing experts, data scientists,consultants and even AI researchers.A unique core of expertise halfwaybetween marketing and engineering,which gives us a headstart on ourcompetitors. As a matter of fact,Artefact was elected in 2017 InnovativeAgency of the Year.

Artefact is designed to be a relevantalternative to large communicationgroups and consulting firms. Howdoes your offer meet the new needs ofmarketing departments?

Artefact responds to the new challengesof marketing departments: they needagile and fast partners, experts who cansubmit new ideas to them continuously,who know how to use today’stechnologies and masterthem perfectly in order to anticipate theirevolution. Consulting firms may not haveas much agility and expertise, and largecommunication groups do not have thesame technology culture as we do, andoften have difficulty coming up with boldstrategies off the beaten digital track.

Artefact has just proposed to thefinancial market a very ambitious 2020

strategic plan. What is your strategy todouble your gross margin in the nextthree years?

We are actually aiming very high with ourambition for the next three years. Hereare the major development axes of theGroup:• Reinforce the support and productiveteams (Strategic Consulting, DataScience, IA Experts) to support thegrowth of the activity and develop pizzateams* internationally;

• Develop R & D and proprietarytechnologies (Automation andInnovation ...) to maintain and enhancethe technological advantage;

• Expand internationally and recreateFrance’s business model in all existingmarkets;

• Expand externally thanks to theacquisition of innovative companies(technological startups, R & D products,etc.).

* Developed by Amazon, Artefact appliesthis concept everyday: it consists inincluding one person of each expertisein a team in order to have a 360expertise at each step of the project.

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AnInterviewWithKay Firth-Butterfield,HeadofAIandmachine learningattheWorldEconomicForum’sCenterforTheFourth IndustrialRevolution

Kay Firth-Butterfieldis head of artificial intelligence andmachine learning at the WorldEconomic Forum’s Center for TheFourth Industrial Revolution, vicechair of the global engineeringstandards group IEEE’s GlobalInitiative for Ethical Considerationsin theDesignofAutonomousSystems,an expert advisor to Britain’s AllPartyParliamentaryGrouponArtificialIntelligence and a member of thetechnical advisory group to theFoundation forResponsibleRobotics.She has worked as a barrister,mediator, arbitrator, professor andjudge in the United Kingdom andhas advanced degrees in law andinternational relations which focuson the ramifications of pervasiveartificial intelligence.Shewas recentlyinterviewed by The Innovator.

If autonomous AI software,crunching data far more rapidlythan humans, can help eradicatedisease and poverty and introducesocietal improvements andefficiencies, then we must embraceit. But, at the same time, we have tohave governance. And right nowthere is no such thing. As a lawyer,judge and AI expert what do youthink is the best way to approachgovernance?— KFB: We need good governance,not governance open to endlesschallenge. This is the reason that Ijoined the Center for the FourthIndustrial Revolution. Theway eachprojectwill createamulti-stakeholderteam to co-design governancemechanisms and then pilot them is,I believe, the ideal way to createuseful legislation in apartner countrythat is then scaleable to others.Can you tell us more about the

World Economic Forum’s role inhelping shape AI’s future?— KFB: Weare seeking to tackle thebig-picture issues at the moment:privacy, trust, bias, transparency,accountability; rather than lookingat uses of AI. Using a pre-secondIndustrial Revolution analogy, I takethe view that we need to get thecouplingbetweenhorseandcart rightbeforewestartthejourney.Theprojectsthat help inform boards and helpcountries create best practices forprocurement of AI are importantbecause if we can help companiesandcountries toonly commissionandcreate ethical, human-centered andresponsible AI then that is the typeofAIwhichwill spread. It alsoenablescountries and companies to applyculturally relevant standards to suchcommissioningwhile encouraging anorm across the globe.


ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

KeepingAnEyeOnAI

For example, as chatbots are createdto support mentally ill adults andchildren, should those interactionsbe regulated? In such cases,medicalprofessional bodies should have ashare of the discussion.One of the projects which has beenrecommended tome by the Forum’sGlobal Future Council on AI andRobotics is to see if the Forum canhelp scale around the world theeducation of computer scientists(especially those going into AI) inthe ethical human-centered designofAI. It is aproject thatweare scopingwith professors from universitiesaround the world. This would helptoeducatescientistsfromthebeginningof their careers.There are voluntary principles suchas theAsilomar Principles. And therehave been suggestions that just aslawyers and doctors have ethicstraining at universities and thenprofessional bodies enforce suchrequirements inpractice, so tooshouldthere be a professional regulatorybody for AI scientists.Most of the initiatives on AI and

ethics involve tech companies.What role, in your opinion, shouldbig corporates in other fields play?How should they get involved andwhy?—KFB: Thewaygoodor baddesignsof AI will spread across the world isthrough the increased use of AI bynon-tech companies. If they setstandards for the sort of AI they buyor develop then good design of AIwill spread more comprehensivelyandmoreswiftly. InaHarvardBusinessReview article last year, AndrewNg(who formally spearheadedAI effortsat Google and Baidu) said that allcompanieswillhavetostart toappointa Chief AI Officer. I have said that

also need different AI strategies. Itis dependent upon their level oftechnological development.At the Center in San Francisco, weare working with partners not onlyfrom industry, academia, the start-up community and civil society butalso with countries. Each projectteam will build policy frameworksand governance protocols with afocus onpartnerswhowill pilot themintheir jurisdictionsandorganizations.Our vision is to help shape thedevelopmentandapplicationof theseemerging technologies for thebenefitof humanity.What sort of guidelines need to beput in place to monitor AI researchand who should develop them?—KFB: Universities need to considerwhether something like the IRB(Institutional ReviewBoard) systemshould be applied to AI research.

A number of efforts are underway inthe tech community and academiato grapple with the complex challen-ges that AI poses. What is the bestway to ensure that there is somesort of coordination between all ofthese efforts?— KFB: Each of these organizationsis doing valuable work in differentareas and aspects of AI. I see themall as complementary to one another.The way in which AI is developedwill be critical for the way in whichhumanity thrives in the future. Weall want to see the massive benefitsthat AI can bring to humanity whileminimizing the risks. Our work atthe Center for the Fourth IndustrialRevolutionandwith thewiderForumisglobal, and itneeds tobe.Allnationsneed to be in a position to benefitfrom AI and our work is inclusive.At the same time, different nations

theywill also need to appoint aChiefValues Officer whose job would beto supervise the ethical/responsibleuse of AI and probably run an EthicsAdvisory Panel. The job of an EthicsAdvisory Panel would be to look atthe use of AI in each product at theinitial stage so that ethical, human-centered and responsible design isbuilt into the application from thestart and not considered as an add-on afterthought.What, in your mind, are the most

pressing AI-related issues thatshould be placed on the agenda in2018?—KFB:Therearemanypressingissuesthat need to be on 2018’s agenda.How can the developing world useand develop AI? Governments needto take a hard look at the educationsystem. Is it ready for the FourthIndustrialRevolution?Andwhataboutthe reskilling of workers? AI willchange the shape ofwhat traditionalwork is and the populationwill needto be prepared. Governments needto also look into developing aninfrastructure that enables talent tothrive at home instead of leaving forjobs elsewhere. If we do not tacklethis problem there is a significantchance that the disparities of wealthwill simply increase.Specifically inAI,workwill beneededto address privacy concerns.Weneedto findways to ensure those creatingAI are drawn from a more diversepopulation.Weneed towork onhowbias in algorithms caused by use ofhistoric data can be addressed. Wealsoneed toworkon the transparencyof algorithms.AI is moving rapidly, but there is alot to do to ensure wemaximize thebenefits while minimizing the risks.

“Ifwecanhelpcompaniesandcountriestoonlycommissionandcreateethical,human-centeredandresponsibleAI thenthat isthetypeofAIwhichwill spread.”

— P.15


IMPLANTABLE TECH SOFTWARE PROGRAMS/BOTs

INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUSMACHINES

CONTROLLEDMACHINES PHYSICAL OBJECTS

(24billion RFIDtags in2020100 billion QR Codes )

— In the not-too-distant future every human with have his own unique digital ID and everything we buy from our cars to tuna in thegrocery store will have its own digital twin.

Credits: Spherity

ORGANISMS/LIVING SPECIES(1 billion cattle8 billion humans )

THEDIGITIZATIONOFEVERYTHING— As people, animals, machines and software are connected, unique digital IDswill become a key enabler of secure transactions and new services.By Jennifer L. Schenker

— P.17

DIGITAL ID

“Everything Is Connected” says the neon lettering on asculpture in a leafy park in Wakefield, England. It is about to become true.Literally. If pundits are right, everything from our own identities to thediamond earrings on our earlobes to the sneakers on our feet, the tuna webuy in the supermarket and the carswe drive,will all be digitized and linkedto the Internet. Up until now governments have owned peoples’ identitiesthrough the issuing of social security numbers, passports, identity cards andbirth and death certificates. And some of the largest Internet companies,including Google and Facebook, have been reapingmost of the profits fromcollecting, aggregating, analyzing and monetizing personal data.But the use of modern cryptography and introduction of new technologiessuch as blockchain – an immutable ledger that allows third parties to validatethat an attribute has not been changed or misrepresented – could helphumans obtain self-sovereign identity, digital identities that remain entirelyunder an individual’s control. Giving identity to non-human objects has far-reaching benefits for the 4th industrial revolution. In sectors such asaerospace andmanufacturing, the pairing of the virtual and physical worldsalready allows the analysis of data and monitoring of systems to head offproblems before they even occur. It can also prevent downtime, develop newopportunities and help planning for the future by using simulations.In thefuture digital twinning is expected to introduce end-to-end visibility in supplychains, prevent counterfeiting and allow for interaction with customers thatbuy an object – via that object – over the lifetime of a product, forming thefoundation for connected products and services.

The Potential Upside is HugeSecure, immutable digital IDs could help achieve one of the United Nations’Sustainable Development Goals: providing every person on the planet witha solid and tamper-proof digital identity based on common, interoperable

standards by 2030. As a first step, the United Nations is seeking to developscalable identity systems by 2020. The aim is to help the some 1.1 billionpeople – including many displaced persons – who currently have nomeansof identification, meaning they can’t vote, go to school or receivegovernment services.The introduction of secure digital identities could also make many existingauthentication processes obsolete and save everyone billions of wastedhours annually, significantly improving privacy and security.Today when people want their identities to be confirmed they have totransfer information such as their name, address and social security. Theentity to which they sent that information retains it, meaning the data isout there in silos, creating both risks in terms of data loss and forcingcompanies that might not want to be in that position to store thatinformation. It also enables businesses to harvest peoples’ personal datafor commercial purposes that do not necessarily benefit the owner of thedata. All of that changes once the owners of the data are in control andcan decide to share only the information they want, when they want, withwhom they want. Modern cryptography – such as zero knowledge proofsystems or secure Multi-Party computing – enables an individual to provideproof to a third party without sharing personal data. For example, a personcould prove they are over 18 without revealing their exact birth date.It could make it safe to share medical records electronically and forgovernments and global NGOs to introduce new electronic services basedon digital IDs. Estonia led the way, but now governments inmany countriesincluding Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Brazil, India, Dubai andthe U.S are trialing secure digital ID services. So are NGOs. In trials inPakistan and at a refugee camp in Jordan, the United Nations World FoodProgram has tested a blockchain-based digital ID service coupled with theuse of biometric information to make cash-based transfers, through


DIGITAL ID

vouchers or pre-paid debit cards – to allow people in need to purchasetheir own food.It doesn’t stop there. Self-sovereign IDs looks poised to have a big impacton the way everyone buys and sell goods. Secure IDs are expected to leadthe way for a process called intent casting, a means to allow buyers tomore effectively and efficiently broadcast their purchase plans and qualifythe sellers. With trusted digital IDs all the information needed, such asproof of ownership, product history and buyer reputation, could be sharedbetween the buyer and seller without revealing personal information suchas full name, home address or email – all without the need for middlemen.“Say I want to refinance a €800,000 home,” says Timothy Ruff, co-founderand CEO of the U.S. digital ID startup Everynym. “I would be able torelease proof that I own it, proof that I am who I say I am and proof thatI can be trusted through some kind of a rating agency. Instead of buyingme as a lead or advertising through Facebook or Google, companies sellinghome mortgages would be able to go straight to me and use the moneythey would have spent on advertisers to give me a better deal.” He adds:“This whole system of intermediaries in the form of search engines,Facebook and AdWords would be flipped on its head. It is potentially verydisruptive.”Once objects such as motorcycles have digital IDs they could be trustedto make transactions on their owner’s behalf. So sometime in the not-too-distant future an owner might text a motorcycle she owns and tell it togo sell itself. With the permission of both buyer and seller, follow-onservices, such as bids to provide insurance to the new owner of themotorcycle, could be provided. Trusted digital IDs could also open newopportunities for existing businesses to create new revenue streams.Banks or Amazon or Alibaba could offer identity management as aseparate, fee-based service. They could, for example, serve as brokers ofdigital data, gathering – at a customer’s request – all of the digital

documents needed from different sources for an individual customer togain approval from an owner to rent or buy an apartment.The World Economic Forum argued in a 2016 report that there is a strongbusiness case for banks to move into such services. Since then otherindustries – including the travel and health sectors – have expressedinterest in how to best establish and use secure digital IDs, prompting theForum to launch a cross-industry initiative to find a way forward, saysDaniel Dobrygowski, the Forum’s project lead on Trust and Resilience.While there is a need for an international approach, establishingagreements will be anything but easy, due to technical, cultural andcommercial issues.

The Twinning of ThingsHumans aren’t alone in needing digital identities. The world is not yet fullyreaping the benefits of the Internet of Things because supply chains arenot transparent or interoperable, there is no trustworthy machine-to-machine communications mechanism and there is fear about the risk ofdata tampering. What’s more, there is no way of having a provable,traceable data trail, and no control over where the data goes.That is expected to change once everything has a digital twin, a data modelof a real-life machine, product or service with a unique immutable identity,says Carsten Stoecker, a council member of the World Economic Forum’sGlobal Future Network and CEO of Spherity, a German startup that aimsto link the identity of everyone and everything to a digital twin.Think of a digital twin as a bridge between the physical and digital worlds.Sensors that gather data about real-time status, working condition, orposition are integrated with a physical item. The components are connectedto a cloud-based system that receives and processes all the data the sensorsmonitor. This input is analyzed against business and other contextual data.

01INTERNET&PLATFORMSGlobal interconnectednessvia the Internet and platformecosystems.

02IOTDEVICES50 billion connected devicesworldwide by 2020.

William Bout Andres Urena

THEFOURTHINDUSTRIALREVOLUTIONISBEINGDRIVENBYTHEFUSIONOFDIFFERENTTECHNOLOGIES

DIGITALIDENTITYSTARTUPSTOWATCH

SPHERITYGERMANYWHAT IT DOES : Buildingapeer-to-peer transaction layer bridging thephysical, biological and digital spheresin order to link the identity of everyoneand everything to a digital twin.

https://spherity.com

— P.19

and related transaction history verification while Chronicled, a SanFrancisco-based startup, is using blockchain-supported digital IDtechnology to tackle counterfeiting of everything from fine art to expensive,original sneakers. By placing microchips onto or inside of virtually anyphysical object, Chronicled can register critical identifying data about thatobject onto the blockchain, authenticating it as the original and trackingeach step in its purchasing history.

Avoiding Replication of Existing IssuesWhile this all sounds great, it could be a while before everybody andeverything has a digital twin and interconnections run smoothly andsecurely. In some countries there will be centralized digital ID programs,but in cases where there is lack of trust in the government or in the abilityof the government to coordinate, a federated or more distributed approachmight be used. Agreement needs to be reached on consumer rights and anew model developed for data owners to share and be compensated for

Information gleaned within the virtual environment can then be appliedto the physical world to improve performance of everything from anairplane part to an entire factory.GE helped pioneer the field of digital representation of a physical asset andits context within an enterprise to understand the past and predict futureoutcomes. In contrast to cloud-based systems, digital twinning incombination with blockchain can and will be used in many other waysbecause the technology enables reliable interoperability, trustedtransactions, proof of authenticity, full audit trailing and the collection oflifecycle data for product development and for tax automation, saysStoecker, who recently left a job as a manager in the machine economyinnovation program at the German energy company innogy SE to co-foundSpherity. Take the case of cars. Spherity’s digital twinning technologyallows the capturing of car data during a vehicle’s entire lifecycle. It canprovide a non-tampered mileage history, preventing odometer fraud; helpestablish pay-per-use tailored insurance or leasing models; and permit therunning of artificial intelligence analysis on telematics data. The Germanstartup’s technology also allows machines to enable pay-per-use modelsfor renting or leasing, for service tracking and monitoring and predictivemaintenance analysis.Spherity additionally plans to apply its technology to digitize green energyassets for peer-to-peer energy trading and to create tracing apps for digitaltwin supply-chain tracking. Other startups are using digital twinning totrack and establish the provenance of fast-moving consumer goods. Forexample, Provenance, a British startup, puts a unique QR code on NearField Communication (NFC)-enabled smart stickers that are placed onitems like cans of tuna. Touching a smartphone over the stickers shows theproduct’s journey from sea to supermarket. Luxury goods are also beingtwinned. Everledger, a British startup, uses the blockchain to provide animmutable ledger to digitally identify individual diamonds, their ownership

03DECENTRALIZATIONRising of decentralizedtechnologies and protocols likeblockchain

04AI&MACHINELEARNINGGlobal participation throughthe Internet.

05ROBOTICSThe automation of jobs isexpected to have a huge impacton the global workforce.

Nasa Joel Filipe Alex Knight

Infographic source :Spherity


DIGITAL ID

their personal data, says Thomas Hardjono, Technical Director at MITInternet Trust Consortium - MIT Connection Science and the co-author,with Alex “Sandy” Pentland, of the book “TrustData : A New Frameworkfor Identity and Data Sharing.” Other issues also need to be resolved. “Iam a physicist by training so I figured how hard can this be? I thoughtidentity was pretty simple but actually it is not,” says Spherity’s Stoecker.Big Tech companies can attest to that. Microsoft tried to introduce a digitalID system called Passport about 15 years ago; Intel, Sun, Oracle and AOLattempted to develop such a service through a group called The LibertyAlliance. Neither service caught on.Fast forward to the present and there is no consensus on what is the righttechnology to use or how evolving approaches might interoperate.For example, Spherity is attempting to build a decentralized, encryptedpeer-to-peer transaction layer bridging the physical, biological and digitalspheres. The not-for-profit Sovrin Foundation is building a public distributedledger that aims to provide a standard way to create decentralized,permanent, globally unique, cryptographically verifiable identifiers that areowned and controlled by their creators. Its technology is being tested inFinland. ConsenSys, a global formation of technologists and entrepreneurs,is building software and enterprise solutions based on the Ethereumplatform. One of its products, uPort, a blockchain-based self-sovereign IDsystem, is being piloted in Brazil and in Switzerland. SecureKey, aCanadian startup specialized in digital information security, authenticationand identity management, is combining its tech with IBM’s blockchain toroll out a nation-wide digital ID service in Canada involving thegovernment, telecom companies and the country’s largest banks. The

Swiss technology company WISeKey, which has developed its own dualfactor digital ID authentication technology, has teamed with thegovernment in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to explore the use ofblockchain to secure data and announced earlier in January that it willlaunch a digital identification and secure cloud services for Chineseconsumers. That’s not all. U.S. tech giants are not ready to cede the marketto upstarts and are putting the building blocks in place for their own newdigital ID services. The World Economic Forum is in a unique position tobring together governments as well as competing commercial players andopensource actors to help people and objects obtain secure digitalidentities and ensure that emerging platforms and services interoperate,says Stoecker. In forging a path forward, it will be important to guardagainst one company or group of companies dominating, he says.Otherwise digital twins won’t just be replicating objects and people, theywill mirror the mistakes made when the Internet was launched by puttingcontrol of personal data and the majority of profits in the hands of toofew players.

CONSENSYSUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : ConsenSysbuildssoftwareandenterprisesolutionsontheEthereumplatform.Oneof itsproducts isuPort,ablockchain-basedself-sovereignIDsystemthat isbeingpilotedbytheBraziliangovernment’sMinistryofPlanningandinZug,Switzerland.https://consensys.net

SECUREKEYCANADAWHAT IT DOES : Adigital IDsystemthatenablesconsumerstocontrolandsharetheirpersonal informationwithoutgoingthroughcentralizedsystems. It isexpectedto launchacountrywideservice inCanada in2018.https://securekey.com

CIVICUNITED STATESWHATIT DOES: Identity verificationand protection tools that give bothbusinesses and individuals the powerto control and protect their identitiesthrough the blockchain.

www.civic.com

EVERYNYMUNITED STATESWHATITDOES: DevelopingablockchainnetworkspecificallyformanagingdigitalidentitiesbasedontheSovrinFoundation’sdistributedidentityledger. ItrecentlypartneredwiththestateofIllinoistocreate”self-sovereign”digitalbirthcertificatesforbabiesborninthestate.www.evernym.com

DIGITALTWINA unique digital twin is a datamodel of a real life machine like acar, product or service with itsown immutable identity.

SOVEREIGNDIGITALIDENTITIESProducts like Spherity’s ”DigitalMe” are a digital representationof a person. They promise to givepeople back full control of theirpersonal data.


THE 30 WORLD ECONOMICFORUM TECHNOLOGYPIONEERSTO MEET IN DAVOSEach year the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers communityrecognizes around 30 innovative early-stage companies that are poisedto have a significant impact on business and society.This year the following companies are scheduled to participate in the Forum’sannual meeting, which takes place January 23-26.

Compiled and written by Jennifer L. SchenkerSchenker is The Innovator’s Editor-in-Chief. She has been a Forum Technology Pioneer judge for 17 years.

CYBERSECURITYDEEP INSTINCTISRAELWHAT IT DOES: Applies the predictive capabilitiesof deep learning to cyber security to protectorganizations against the most evasive malwarein real time, with high accuracy. It countsCalifornia chipmaker Nvidia amongst its investors.

www.deepinstinct.com

DIGITAL IDENTITYONFIDOUNITEDKINGDOMWHAT IT DOES: Digital identify verification andbackground checks.Its machine learning technologyautomates checks on over 600 documents across192 countries. Investors include SalesforceVentures and Microsoft Ventures.

www.onfido.com

FOODSECURITYIMPOSSIBLE FOODSUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Transforms nutrients from plantcrops directly into foods that have the samenutritional value and flavors and textures of meatand dairy products. It recently partnered with DOT,the largest food distributor in the U.S.

www.impossiblefoods.com

PRODUCTIONKONUXGERMANYWHAT IT DOES: Offers an end-to-end IndustrialInternet of Things solution that combines smartsensors and AI-based analytics to enablepredictive maintenance for industrial and railcompanies. Clients include Deutsche Bahn,Europe’s largest rail operator.www.konux.com

PRODUCTIONUPSKILLUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Offers an industrial augmentedreality software platform to enterprises thatallows employees to access data, broadcast point-of-view video or photos and receive liveassistance without having to move away fromtheir work.https://upskill.io/

PRODUCTIONSYNTHACEUNITEDKINGDOMWHAT IT DOES: Developed an operating system andlanguage specifically to bring end-to-end digitizationto biotechnology, enabling faster engineering ofbiology for health, food, energy and manufacturing.Pharmaceutical, agricultural tech and industrialbiotechnology companies use its platform.https://synthace.com

MOBILITYNUTONOMYUNITEDSTATES/UNITEDKINGDOMWHAT IT DOES: Now a part of Aptiv, nuTonomy isdevelopingacompletesolutionforpoint-to-pointmobilityvia largefleetsofautonomousvehicles, inclu-dingsoftwareforautonomousvehiclenavigation inurbanenvironments,smartphone-basedridehailingandfleetroutingandmanagement.www.aptiv.com

ENERGYELECTRONUNITEDKINGDOMWHAT IT DOES: : Uses distributed ledgertechnology to help transform existing energyinfrastructure from being a central intermediaryand adapts it to renewable energy sources andthe integration of new smart-grid technologies.

www.electron.org.uk

HEALTHOMADA HEALTHUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses smart technology, aproprietary health-related curriculum, on-demandaccess to a personal health coach and an online peernetwork to influence the behavior of people at riskfor heart disease, diabetes and other chronicconditions.www.omadahealth.com

HEALTHSECOND GENOMEUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Built a novel microbiome technologyplatform, resulting in a pipeline of drug discovery,including a number of microbiome-derived proteins,peptides and metabolites, with applications acrossgastrointestinal disease, immuno-oncology,inflammation and metabolic diseases.www.secondgenome.com

HEALTHAUGMETIXUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses Google Glass to connectdoctors with remote medical scribes who documentpatients’ visits in real-time, saving doctors threehours of paperwork per day, leaving more time foractual face-to-face interaction with their patients.

www.augmetix.com

INTERNETFISCALNOTEUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses artificial intelligence and bigdata to deliver predictive analysis of the governmen-tal policy landscape. Its information and analyticsplatform provides real-time information that helpsattorneys, compliance professionals, and lobbyists toobtain an up-to-the-minute understanding.www.fiscalnote.com

DIGITALCHAINUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Chain’s software enablesinstitutions to issue and transfer financial assetson blockchain networks. Nasdaq and Citi Treasuryand Trade Solutions have used Chain’s technologyto develop a new integrated payment solution torecord and transmit payment instructions.https://chain.com

DIGITALMESOSPHEREUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Mesosphere’s DatacentreOperating System aggregates server hardwareand cloud-based virtual machines so that theybehave like a single, logical computer, allowingmicro services, containers and big data services tobe easily deployed and scaled.https://mesosphere.com

— P.23

ENVIRONMENTINDIGO AGRICULTUREUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses plant microbiomes tostrengthen crops against disease and drought, toincrease crop yield for farmers. It aims to obtain30% to 50% yield improvements over the next 10years for cotton, rice, wheat and soy crops.

www.indigoag.com

ENVIRONMENTASTROSCALESINGAPOREWHAT IT DOES: Develops technologies to monitorand safely remove the roughly 750,000 spacedebris objects greater than one centimeter indiameter that are currently orbiting the Earth,including dead satellites. Backers include Japan’sANA Holdings.astroscale.com

PRODUCTIONDESKTOP METALUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Has developed an integratedsystem of software, parameters and materialsthat allows teams to go directly from computeraided design to rapid prototyping and volumeproduction, accelerating product developmentand manufacturing.www.desktopmetal.com

PRODUCTIONCITRINE INFORMATICSUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Applies artificial intelligence tolarge-scale data to anticipate how materials andchemicals will behave, helping companies achievetheir R&D, product development andmanufacturing milestones in half to one-fifth thetime of normal development processes.https://citrine.io

PRODUCTIONUPTAKE TECHNOLOGIESUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: A predictive analytics software-as-a-service platform for global industries that aims toimprove productivity, reliability and safety throughsensor data. The platform powers operationalinsights with a suite of solutions, including predictivediagnostics and fleet management applications.www.uptake.com

PRODUCTIONZYMERGENUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Invented an automated process toreprogram the DNA of microbes in order to rapidlytest which ones have the ability to create the bestnew useful raw materials for industries likeagriculture, chemical manufacturing and healthcare.

www.zymergen.com

MOBILITYAIRWAREUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Provides drone technologiesincluding navigation software, operator softwarefor autonomous aircraft monitoring and guidance,and cloud-based analytics and reporting for fleetmanagement to help enterprises plan and managedrone flights and analyze resulting aerial data.www.airware.com

MOBILITYCHRONOCAMFRANCEWHAT IT DOES: Develops systems that allowmachines to ”see” in much the same way that thehuman brain processes images from the retina.Applications include making interactions betweenhumans and industrial robots safer and superiorguidance for autonomous cars.www.chronocam.com

ENERGYPHYSEETHENETHERLANDSWHAT IT DOES: Makes transparent double-paned”power windows” that convert light into electricityand ”smart windows” that use Internet of Thingssensors to measure climate conditions in order tocalculate optimal settings for buildings.

www.physee.eu

HEALTHHUMACYTEUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses proprietary technology togrow ”off-the-shelf” human tissue replacementssuch as vein grafts. Potential therapeuticapplications include repair or replacement ofdamaged arteries, coronary artery bypass surgery,and vascular trauma, including battlefield injuries.www.humacyte.com

INTERNETSLACKUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: A messaging platform that bringstogether all team communications and organizesthem in one place; uses real-time messaging toimprove productivity and reduce internal email;and provides easy-to-use archiving and search.

https://slack.com

INTERNETORBITAL INSIGHTUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Uses deep learning to discoversocial, economic and agricultural trends throughsatellite-image analysis. It can study any type ofaerial imagery to deliver insights that can be usedto make market decisions.

https://orbitalinsight.com

INTERNETQUIDUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Indexes millions of documents andcreates an interactive visual map of the data on thefly, permitting users to navigate through theworld’s collective intelligence, see relationships thatwere previously hidden and answer strategicquestions.https://quid.com

DIGITALMAANAUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Encodes the world’s industrialexpertise and data and translates it into digitalknowledge. Maana’s knowledge graph — coupledwith advanced AI algorithms, semantic search, anddeep learning — helps industrial companies makefaster and more relevant data-driven decisions.www.maana.io

DIGITALMETA COMPANYUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: : Augmented reality headsets thatserve as productivity tools, allowing wearers tomove and manipulate 3D content intuitively, usingnatural hand interactions. Investors includeHorizons Ventures Limited, Lenovo, Tencent andComcast Ventures.www.metavision.com

DIGITAL&ENTERTAINMENTPENROSE STUDIOSUNITEDSTATESWHAT IT DOES: Founded by Eugene Chung, aformer Pixar executive and the first head of OculusStudios, the virtual reality giant’s cinematiccontent production arm, Penrose Studios createsshort, episodic, narrative content in virtual reality.

www.penrosestudios.com


It’s every CEO’s nightmare. A data breach not only impactedyour company, it compromised the personal information of the nearly 1.5million people connected to your network. That is what happened toEquifax, a U.S. consumer credit reporting agency, last September. Databreaches have become a commonplace part of digital life and such outsidethreats, along with technology developments, leave companies morevulnerable than ever.There are a lot of negative implications of massively scaled networking,says Adam Ghetti, founder and chief executive officer of Ionic Security,aWorld Economic ForumTechnology Pioneer and amember of the Forum’sGlobal Future Council on Cybersecurity.“Look at Equifax. A single breach at a single company can do irreversibledamage to the vast majority of adults in America by compromisinginformation that is deemed to be private and can’t be changed – you can’tgo out and get another social security number or date of birth. Theimplications of these things have grown beyond security best practices,”he says. Indeed, cybersecurity threats are outpacing the ability of companiesand governments to overcome them unless all stakeholders begin to

PlayingDefense— The Forum’s new Global Centre forCybersecurity seeks to help companies and governmentsbetter combat digital infiltrators

CYBERSECURITY

cooperate, according to a new report by the Forum in collaboration withThe Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report covers 14 policy topicsthat need to be addressed. It is against this background that the Forumwill officially launch its Global Centre for Cybersecurity during the annualmeeting in Davos on January 23rd to 26th. “The World Economic Forumcan use its unique convening ability, especially among the most seniorindustry decision-makers and government policymakers, to help drivereal-world solutions to vexing cybersecurity challenges,” says Alan Cohn,co-chair of the Forum’s Global Future Council on Cybersecurity and aformer director of Emergency Preparedness and Response Policy at theU.S. Department of Homeland Security.

A Need For GuidelinesAddressing these threats requiresdialogueacross industries andcompetencies,and on subjects from the technical to the ethical, says the report. Currently,dialogue between leaders in the public and private sectors is often off-target and at cross purposes, the report says. Policy implementation alsovaries by national context: every country has its own unique capabilities,vulnerabilities and priorities.Companies also need guidelines as they are constantly sharing sensitivedata and interconnecting with vendors and business partners, openingthemselves to tremendous vulnerabilities. “It has gotten so bad that I knowof $100 million contracts that have been held up for a year or more whilethe buyer and seller negotiates what type of warranties to provide forsensitive data,” says James Kaplan, who leads McKinsey’s Infrastructureand Cybersecurity practice. “There are no standards so everything is abespoke negotiation.” Technology developments and the rate of changeare escalating concerns. “We are beyond human scale defense,” says Ghettiof Ionic Security. “We have so many systems that are implemented by somany different stakeholders that there is not a single group of humanscapable of wrapping their heads around all of the problems all of thetime.”That is where artificial intelligence can help. “We need to figure out howto get the systems themselves to take part in the active defense,” saysGhetti. “What Imean is thatwehave to relymoreon themachines themselvesnot just to tell us that there is something suspicious.We need themachinesto do something about it before a human can respond.”But technology is a two-edged sword. Artificial intelligence will play an

increasingly large role on both sides, underpinning much more capabledefense but also enabling increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.Today, it takes a lot of time andmoney for criminals to find vulnerabilitiesin software programs or networks and exploit them. With AI the processof detecting flaws will be automated. So instead of looking for a tediousneedle in the haystack, the bad guys could start launching frequent “zeroday attacks” that target publicly known but still unpatched vulnerabilities.

Vulnerable To AttackThe introduction of a quantum computing could also cause headaches. Ithas the potential to disrupt the use of encryption, a critical piece of datasecurity and protection against threats. So, the forum advises companiesand governments to prepare because existingmethods of computationallybased encryptionmay soonno longer guarantees protection of data. Luckily,there are other types of encryption currency being designed and testedthat are not subject to the same decryption risks from quantum computing,and there are other approaches to data and system protection besides

— P.25

CYBERSECURITYSTARTUPSTOWATCH

DEEP INSTINCTISRAELWHAT IT DOES : Applies the predictivecapabilities of deep learning tocybersecurity to protect organizationsagainst the most evasive malware inreal-time, with high accuracy. It’s aWorld Economic Forum TechnologyPioneer.www.deepinstinct.com

encryption, says a Forum cybersecurity report. The way networks arecurrently structured also exposes companies to attacks .Open innovationmodels, which encourage businesses to bring in externalideas and technologies, and the introduction of the Internet of Things(IoT)—thenamegiven for the interconnection via the Internet of computing

devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receivedata — are also compounding cyber-security issues.

Collaboration is KeyDifferent technologies and technology protocols, including those that useblockchain to allow individuals to retain control of personally identifiableinformation, that let devices more securely authenticate onto networks,and that distribute and synchronize ledgers across several (if not hundreds,or thousands) of computers, may be better platforms for constructingmore secure and resilient information and data networks, according toa Forum report.Blockchain technology, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencieslike bitcoin, holds the potential to serve as this new type of distributed,decentralized platform. Features like identity verification and validation,device authentication, and secure ledgerkeeping, may be better suited toresisting cyber threats. Nonetheless, critical infrastructure, whether ownedby the public or private sector, may increasingly find itself on the frontlines of cyber-conflict, no longer seen as civilian infrastructure but ratheras a legitimate target in conflicts between states, or within states, accordingto a Forum report.All of these things make it more important than ever for stakeholders tocollaborate on defense. For example, an effective intelligence-sharing policywill help limit the spread of malicious software, and the greater adoptionof encryption may limit the ability to monitor and police network traffic,

says the Forum report. In practice, what this means for business leadersand policymakers is that cybersecurity policy-making efforts should bemore collaborative and deliberative. Efforts should also be framed in thecontext of an ongoing iterative process rather than ad-hoc and crisis-driven,resulting in patchwork legislation, the report says. Ghetti agrees. “Whatwe have today is a surface level of collaboration but we have a very deepset of challenges. What we need is authentic collaboration.”J.L.S.

THETARAYISRAELWHAT IT DOES : UsesthepowerofAI toprovidereal-timedetectionofunprecedentedandunknownthreatsusingbigdataanalyticsthatsimul-taneouslymonitordatafromallsourceswithinanorganization.

www.thetaray.com

IONIC SECURITYUNITED STATESWHATITDOES: Aims to solve datasecurity problems at the intersectionof cloud, mobility and analytics. It’s aWorld Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.

www.ionic.com

CYLANCEUNITED STATESWHATITDOES: Applies AI algorithms topredict, identify and stop malware andmitigate damage from zero-dayattacks. It’s a World Economic ForumTechnology Pioneer.

www.cylance.com

DARKTRACEUNITED KINGDOMWHATITDOES: Pairs behavioralanalytics with advanced mathematicsto automatically detect abnormalbehavior in organizations.

www.darktrace.com


CYBERSECURITY

“The World Economic Forumcan use its unique convening ability,especially among the most seniorindustry decision-makers andgovernment policymakers, to helpdrive real-world solutionsto vexing cybersecurity challenges.”AlanCohn,co-chairof theForum’sGlobalFutureCouncilonCybersecurityandaformerdirectorofEmergencyPreparednessandResponsePolicyatthe U.S.DepartmentofHomelandSecurity.

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Initially individuals ‘mined’ Bitcoins, using powerfulcomputer software to crack complex algorithmsand ‘solve’ blocks in the blockchain, the digitalledger that underpins Bitcoin. Nakamoto minedthe first block of Bitcoins – the so-called‘genesis block’ – and was rewarded with 50tokens. It is estimated that Nakamoto mined1 million Bitcoins in the early years.

Less than three years after Bitcoin’slaunch, Satoshi Nakamoto vanished fromthe internet – and has neither been heardof since nor positively identified. At thatpoint the total value of all Bitcoin incirculation was over $54.5 million.

Laszlo Hanyecz made the first documentedpurchase of a good using Bitcoin on 22ndMay, 2010. The Florida-based programmerpaid 10,000 tokens in exchange for twopizzas. Back then they were worth roughly$25, but at the time of writing that is equal tomore than $40 million.

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acts About Bitcoin

There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of decentralised, digital y are all spawned from Bitcoin, the original

. It was released as open-source software in January 2009 by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – the unknown

veloped Bitcoin, and simulta-

Initially individuals ‘mined’ Bitcoins, using powerful x algorithms

mined

Laszlo Hanyecz made the first documentedpurchase of a good using Bitcoin on 22nd

ammer

y were worth roughly $25, but at the time of writing that is equal to

In the last 12 months, the price of Bitcoin has oughly 1500% as of 4th

ably against the S&P500 (22%) and UK100 (8%). By January 2018,

apitalisation was $250 billion, having hit an all-time high of $20,000 per coin in December 2017.

“Food production has astronger negative impact on theenvironment and climate than anyother industrial sector,” says MarcBuckley, an international expert onvertical farmingandrenewableenergy.“The environmental damage iscalculated to bemore than 224% ofthe industry`s EBITDA.”Buckley, an ardent environmentalistwho grew up on a farm, is out toprove that it doesn’t have to be thatway. He and a small team ofexperienced entrepreneurs are theco-foundersof theALOHAS(AdaptiveLifestyleofHealthandSustainability)ECO-Center,aneco-friendlygigafactoryfor energy, agriculture, food andbeverages being built in Germanythat could serve as a model for theindustry and be deployed in othercities.If it works as planned, once it openslater this year the 400,000 squaremeter plant will be able to feed andhydrate 500,000 people comfortablyall year long. The ECO-center iscalled a gigfactory due to the amount of energy it will be able to produce:the equalivent of six factories – and because it is gargantuan in size. Thecenter will produce 80 megawatts per day of renewable energy, mixedbetween solar, wind and hydrogen power and store 150 megawatts perday in Tesla Powerpacks and Aquion salt water batteries. Only an estimated15% of the generated electricity will be used by the facility. The rest willreturn to the local grid. Buckley estimates the plant could provide theyearly energy needs of 380,000 people. The ECO-center plans to extractfive million hectoliters of drinking water per year, the equivalent of 200Olympic sized swimming pools. It will be able to produce over 299metrictons of food a year.When built it is expected to be the largest vertical firm in the world (theequivalent of ten factories under one room) and produce no greenhousegases. The factory is being designed by William (Bill) McDonough theauthor of the book Cradle To Cradle: Remaking TheWayWeMake Things,

a globally recognized leader insustainable development.The ECO-Center will incorporatevertical farmingmethods, thepracticeofproducing food invertically stackedlayers. Itexpects toharvestonemillionmetric tons of salad and vegetablesa day. ECO-Centers could be builtelsewhereandserveasa infrastructureor resilient back-up for major citiesin times of disaster, helping in theaftermath of disasters, such as thehurricane thathit PuertoRico,wipingout most of its crops and shuttingdown its electricity, says Buckley. Hesays he approached several of theworld’s top food and beveragecompanies about partnering on theproject. All refused. Buckley wasn’tsurprised because, he says thatmostof themmake a great show of greenpilot projects but even when theyare very successful don’t adopt themodels in other facilities.So he decided to build the firstsustainableEuropeancirculareconomybased innovation system for

agriculture, food and beverage production on his own, to prove it can bedone and run profitably. It plans to generate revenue from five differentsources: integrating renewable energy into the electrical grid and intostorage, providing co-packing and filling for the beverage and food industry,becoming awholesale supplier for supermarkets, restaurants and canteens,selling its own food and drink products and generating income from a500 person rest stop, ECO store, charging location for electric vehicles,space rental, events, conferences and a visiting center.“The ECO-Center will be a pioneer in the transition to global food reformand set the example of how the agriculture, food, and beverage industrycan be healthy for humanity and our environment,” says Buckley. “Itaddresses 12 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and I believethis example will impact millions of people and help the industry reachthe 2030 agenda goal to remain below 1.5 degrees of warming.”J.L.S.

ReformingFoodProduction

A rendering of the ALOHAS ( Adaptive Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability)ECO-Center, which will be built near Hamburg, Germany.The facility is being designed by the architect William (Bill) McDonough, authorof the book Cradle To Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things, and a globallyrecognized leader in sustainable development.

— An eco-friendly gigafactory for energy, agriculture,food and beverages being built in Germany could serveas a model for the industry


FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

AnInterviewWithEmmanuelleCharpentier,The technology’sco-inventor

The discovery ofCRISPR/Cas9 is revolutionizing lifesciences research and is openingwholenewopportunities inbiomedicalgene therapies, with a huge potentialimpact on the future of humanhealthandon foodproduction. EmmanuelleCharpentier, a French national anda director at theMax Planck Institutefor Infection Biology in Berlin,Germany, is the inventorandco-ownerof the fundamental intellectualproperty comprising the CRISPR-Cas9 technology and is co-founderof CRISPR Therapeutics and ERSGenomics, two companies that shecreated, together with Rodger Novakand Shaun Foy, to develop theCRISPR-Cas9 genome engineeringtechnology for biotechnological andbiomedical applications.Charpentierhas been awarded over 60 differenthonors andher scientific contributionshavebeen featured inTIMEmagazine(2016 short list for Person of theYear), Vanity Fair (2016 list of TheNew Establishment; 2014 and 2015list of the 50most influential French

people), Foreign Policy (2014 listof 100 Leading Global thinkers), andmany others. She recently agreedto an interview with The Innovator.

Can you explain in layman’s termshow CRISPR/Cas9 improves onprevious gene-editing tools?—EC: One of the greatest hopes ofmodern gene technology is the fightagainst serious genetic diseases. Inorder to push research in this fieldforwardmore efficiently, the CRISPR-Cas9 technology is a very promisingtool. CRISPR-Cas9 works much likea text editing software: It can edit orcorrect typos in your document. i.e.yourDNA. It functionsas target-seekingmolecular scissors, kindof like a Swissarmy knife, that can be used tointroduce a variety of changes intothe genome of any cell or organism.Compared to previous gene-editingtechnologies,CRISPR-Cas9isextremelyversatile, easy to use and inexpensiveto develop, tailor and apply.Furthermore,multiplemutations canbe introduced at the same time by


FOOD AND HEALTH

HowCRISPRCas9CouldHelpCurbDiseaseAndFeedTheWorld

the medical field. Therefore, thescientific community is working hardto develop CRISPR-Cas moleculartools further to improve their accuracy.In your opinion is there a need forlegal and regulatory authorities tostep in and come up with guidelinesfor balancing the interests of humanlife with research, and avoid anypossible large-scale negativeimplications for future generations?How should such rules be devisedglobally and who should have a say?—EC:CRISPR is a very powerful tool,and as such the technology has alsoattracted private interest, both in thefield of agriculture and also in whatwecallhumanenhancement. I stronglybelieve that there is a need for morediscussions and international

lot of time and understanding toelucidate those mechanisms beforeone can actually think about applyinggenetic therapies to treat diseases onhuman beings.At least one study showed therecould be unintended mutationswhen you dice and splice the humangenome. To what extent is this fearand ethical issues around geneediting, such as the creation of“designer babies,” holding CRISPR-Cas9 back?—EC: It is true that unintendedmutations were found with certainCRISPR-Cas9 applications. But theyare quite rare and easy to identify.Obviously, thegoal is toavoidunwantedoff-target effects, especially since theconsequences can be very serious in

using multiple guide RNAs, helpingto design complex disease modelsthatwould otherwise require lengthyproceduresandcomplicated strategies.CRISPR/Cas9 shows promise fortreating everything from cancer toType 2 diabetes and malaria, andtrials have already begun onhumans. Is there a real chance itcould completely eradicate certaindiseases?—EC: The potential of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology is very promisingfor the development of therapeuticmeasures against serious geneticdiseases, for example cancer, HIVinfectionor sickle cell anaemia, amongothers. For the latter, CRISPRTherapeutics, thecompanyIco-foundedwithRodgerNovak, has recently filedan application for clinical trials herein Europe – so yes, there is hope thatcertain diseases may be treatedeffectively in the future.Nevertheless, we need to be awareof the fact that the biologicalmechanisms of diseases all workdifferently. Furthermore, it takes a

regulations about the potential risksof CRISPR-Cas9 as a gene-editingtechnology. After all, we also bear acertain responsibility as scientists:Weneed to make sure that appropriatesafety and efficacy measures for anypotential therapy that involvespatientsare taken and that any use of thetechnologythat isethicallyquestionableis prohibited. In this regard, we cancurrentlywitnessavery livelydiscussionabout using CRISPR-Cas9 in humangermlines (the process by which thegenome of an individual is edited insuchawaythat thechangeisheritable).In my opinion, this is problematicand we need clear regulations on aninternational level. But I also believe

— P.31


FOOD AND HEALTH

Your co-discoverer, the Americanscientist Jennifer Doudna, has saidpublicly that the first realsignificant impact of CRISPR-Cas9could be in agriculture. How mightCRISPR-Cas9 specifically help theglobal food crisis?—EC:Wearecurrentlyfacingimminentproblems on a global scale, amongthese a rapidly growing population,climate change and world hungerand we are in need of fast solutionsto secure the food chain. Scientistsare using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology incropengineering,because it can reduce the problemsthat appear randomly throughconventional breeding. This, in turn,means time and cost savings but alsomore security. Also, it is possible tobreed plants that are less receptiveto parasites and fungi and moreresistant against climate change.Analysts say regulations fortransgenic and gene-edited crops,especially in European countries,represent a challenge for companiesand scientists and have significantlyimpacted the commercializationprocess of crops modified byCRISPR-Cas9. How should concernsover genetically modified crops bebalanced with demands to ramp upfood production?—EC:TherearesubstantialdiscussionsinEuropeaboutwhetherplants editedwith the CRISPR-Cas9 technologycan actually be defined as geneticallymodified organisms (GMOs). Manyargue that they are not because thechanges induced are in fact so tinythat they cannot be distinguished

that research on human embryoticcells may benefit the understandingof early development in life. This,in turn, could help elucidate themechanisms underlying thedevelopment of certain diseases. Toresolve these ethically questionableissues, we need a broad and globaldebate involving all stakeholders,ranging from scientists in disciplinesas diverse as agriculture andbiomedicine to policy makers,physicians, researchersanddevelopers.This is instrumental to ensure thatwe are able to prevent abuse of thetechnology without restricting andhindering research and developmentin the safe andbeneficial applications.There definitely needs to be jointglobal initiatives and guidelines toensure that the safe and ethical usesof technologies are promoted andthe unethical or harmful applicationsare prevented, even if this is not aneasy endeavor.

fromnaturalmutationsorconventionalbreeding practices. Voices againstCRISPR,of course, say thatanyeditingof genes is a potential risk. The EUCourt of Justice wants to decide thisyear on how to regulate CRISPR-edited crops, and I believe that weshould wait for that decision beforeplansabout increased foodproductionare made in detail.CRISPR Therapeutics, the startup youcofounded, accepted investmentfrom the German pharmaceuticalgiant Bayer. What can you tell usabout this collaboration and thefocus of CRISPR Therapeutics’ work?—EC: Casebia is a 50-50 joint venturebetween Bayer and CRISPRTherapeutics. It is fully funded byBayerwith $370million, andCRISPRTherapeutics contributes intellectualproperty for three therapeutic areas:cardiology,ophthalmologyandspecifichematologic indications. This year,we expect Casebia to provide anupdate on the progress in theirprograms.A recent study by Frost & Sullivanresearch firm estimated the revenuepotential from CRISPR-Cas9 tools ataround $25 billion-$30 billion by2030, including human therapeutics,agriculture and plant genomics,animal biotech, and research tools.So it is not surprising that bigpharma companies such as Bayer,Novartis and others are investing inthe technology. To what extent arethe current patent disputes acting asa brake on development? How soonmight they be settled?—EC: My work and that of my

colleagues is recognized asfoundational for the CRISPR-Cas9field throughout the entire scientificcommunity and I am very happy thatit is well appreciated by both themand the general public. I do notcommenton thepatentprocess exceptto note that we are pursuing ourown application, which was filedsubstantially earlier. While that willtake some time to resolve, we willcontinue to focus on our science andthe important developments on thepath to transforming CRISPR-Cas9into novel therapeutic options forpatients suffering from seriousdiseases.What breakthroughs connectedto CRISPR/Cas9 can we expectin 2018 ?—EC: In 2018, CRISPR Therapeuticsanticipates a landmark year in drugdevelopment, beginning with thefirst clinical trial of a CRISPR-basedtherapeutic: CTX001 in beta-thalassemia (a group of inheritedblood disorders). The company isalso going to file an InvestigationalNew Drug Application for the samecandidate in sickle cell disease inthe United States and anticipatesbeginning that study in 2018. Therewill be the associated milestoneswith these events, including the firstpatients treated. Further, CRISPRTherapeutics anticipates a big yearin immuno-oncology programs withthe filing of an Investigational NewDrug Application on their firstallogeneicCAR-Tcell therapy,CTX101in CD19+ malignancies.J.L.S.

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FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

FOODTECHSTARTUPSTOWATCH

IMPOSSIBLE FOODSUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : Transforms nutrientsfrom plant crops directly into foods thathave the same nutritional value andflavors and textures of meat and dairyproducts. It recently partnered withDOT, the largest food distributor in theU.S.www.impossiblefoods.com

Global food systems today are unsustainable for both peopleandtheplanet.They leave billions of people inadequately nourished, operateat a high environmental cost, waste large amounts of what is producedand leave many of their producers at or below the poverty level. That’sthe conclusion of aWorld Economic Forum report preparedwithMcKinseyentitled “Innovation With A Purpose: The Role of Technology Innovationin Accelerating Food Systems Transformation” that is scheduled to bereleased at the annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 23-26.The hope is that new technologies and innovations will help shape a verydifferent future and advance the United Nations Sustainable DevelopmentGoals. “The Forum is trying to create an intellectual framing and stakehol-der alignment,” says Antonin Picou, a McKinsey consultant who workedon the report. “How do you get the most value out of technology changeand apply it for the global common good?” The envisioned transforma-tion might not only fix what is broken, it could create economic value aswell, notes the report. New business opportunities generated in the courseof addressing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in thefood and agriculture sector could reach $2.3 trillion annually by 2030,according to the Business and Sustainable Development Commission.The food and agriculture sectors have been slow to harness the power ofnew technologies, attracting significantly lower levels of investment andinspiring fewer technology start-ups than other sectors.The Forum’s research showed that there has been $14 billion in invest-ments in 1,000 food systems-focused startups since 2010. To put that inperspective, the healthcare sector attracted $145 billion in investment in18,000 startups during the same time period.The lower level of investment is due in part to the complexity of the sec-tor. Startups can’t do it alone. Achieving a true transformation of food sys-tems requires a holistic approach – one engaging all stakeholders and de-

ploying a wide array of actions such as improved policy, increased invest-ment, expanded infrastructure, farmer capacity-building, consumer be-havior change and improved resource management, the report says.

12 Impact TargetsThe report identifies 12 areas where it believes technology innovationcould have the most impact. These include alternative proteins; food sen-sing technology for safety, quality and traceability; nutrogenics for perso-nalized nutrition; Big Data for advanced analytics and insurance; mobileservice delivery; blockchain-enabled traceability; Internet of Things forsupply chain transparency and traceability; precision agriculture for inputand water use optimization; microbiome technologies to enhance cropresilience,;gene editing for multi-trait gene improvements; biological cropprotection and micro nutrients for soil management; off-grid renewableenergy for services. Among the technologies with impact are proteins that

InnovationWithImpact— Plant microbiomes, lab-grown meat, seafoodsubstitutes ,insect protein and dairy-free milk could helpfeed the planet.

MEMPHIS MEATSUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : Uses stem cells fromreal animals to grow meat in a lab. Itsinvestors include Microsoft’s BillGates, Virgin Group’s RichardBranson and former GE Chairmanand CEO Jack Welsh.

www.memphismeats.com

INDIGO AGRICULTUREUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : Uses plantmicrobiomes to strengthen cropsagainst disease and drought to helpfarmers sustainably feed the planet.It’s a World Economic ForumTechnology Pioneer.

www.indigoag.com

PERFECT DAY FOODSUNITED STATESWHATITDOES: Develops animal-freedairy proteins that provide the samenutritional benefits as animal-deriveddairy protein.

www.perfectdayfoods.com

PROTIXTHE NETHERLANDSWHATITDOES: Produces insect-basedproteins on an industrial scale.Insect-based proteins are a promisingnew category of ingredients that canbe used in a broad range of applica-tions such as fish feed, livestock feedand food.https://protix.eu

— P.35

gies are wide-ranging. Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies havethe potential to help revolutionize food systems, dramatically changingthe shape of demand, improving value-chain linkages and creating moreeffective production systems, says the report. At the same time, howe-ver, they are likely to introduce new challenges. New technologies raiseconcerns pertaining to health and safety, the environment, privacy andethics. They can create unintended consequences, which must be consi-dered and explored in advance. In addition, their positive effects may beunevenly distributed, potentially deepening the divide between rich andpoor.Harnessing the positive impacts of technology innovation and avoidingpotential downfalls will require deliberate and coordinated efforts by in-vestors, innovators and policymakers. It is unclear if the ambitious goalscan be achieved, but thanks to the Forum, at least the possibility of foodreform is now on the tableJ.L.S.

serve as an alternative to meat. Startups in this space are already gainingsome traction and threatening the $90 billion meat industry. (See the sto-ry on pages 36-37. ) Precision agriculture, a technique that uses techno-logy to observe, measure and respond to variability in crops, is anotherarea positioned to have a big impact. One example of a precision agri-culture practice is to evaluate the natural soil variability of a field so if thesoil in one area holds water better, crops can be plantedmore densely andirrigation reduced. Technology that enables this more targeted agricultu-re could reduce farmers’ costs by up to $100 billion, increase productionby up to 300 million tons and reduce freshwater withdrawals by up to180 billion cubic meters, the report says.Several emerging technologies have the potential to shape consumer dietsand consumption behaviors in ways that could significantly impact foodsystems. Consumers may switch their diets to plant-based or cell-grownalternatives to meat or demand that the animals they eat be fed in-sect-based proteins. The potential impacts of such disruptive technolo-

WHAT IF...

Consumers choseto replace 10-15%of meat(40-60 million tonsof meat)with alternativeproteins by 2030

30-50% ofthe consumers indeveloped countriesused food scanningto determineexpiration dates by2030

10-15% of theoverweightpopulation(250-370 millionpeople) followedpersonalized nutritionplans by 2030

THE IMPACTCOULD BE..

Reduced Gh GemissionsMegatons of CO2Eq.

Reduced wateruseBillion cubic meters

Freed landMillion hectares

Reduced food wasteMillions of tons

Reduced overweightpopulationMillions of people

WHICH IS THEEQUIVALENT OF..

5-8% of total agriculturalGh G emissions

7-12% of total fresh waterwithdrawn for agriculture

5-10% of total land usefor agriculture

5-7% of total food wasted

1-2% of the total globaloverweight population

DRIVEN BY..

Reduced emissions from the productionof livestock and feed

Reduced water from the production oflivestock and feed

Reduced number of livestock drivingincreased availability of land

Reduced domestic food waste fromindividualized and real-time expirationdates

Reduced number of overweight fromtailored and individualized nutritionand diets

550-950

225-400

250-400

10-20

25-55

SUMMARY OF IMPACTS BY 2030:CHANGING THE SHAPE OF DEMAND

ALTERNATIVEPROTEINS

FOOD SENSINGTECHNOLOGIESFOR FOOD SAFETY,QUALITY,AND TRACEABILITY

NUTRIGENETICSFORPERSONALIZEDNUTRITION

Source : World Economic Forum, in cooperation with McKinsey


FOOD AND HEALTH

Fishingfor Innovation— Startups could be the industry’s lifeline

SafetyNet Technologies, a UK startup, uses light-based visualstimuli to alter the species and size selectivity of different fish captureprocesses. The goal? To reduce the 27million tons of so-called bycatch fishthat theglobal fisheries industrydiscards eachyear.Overfishingandbycatchfishing arenot only a threat to a sustainable food source,wasting8%to25%of the global catch comes at a cost of $1 billion a year. TheUK startup is oneof seven startups accepted so far into the 2018 program of the BayerFoundations, an armofBayer, theGermanglobal life sciences company thatfocuses on thehealthcare andagriculture sectors, and that has been fundinghealth, nutrition and education since 1896.Today the foundation sets aside a total of $15million a year to fund startupsand products aimed at social good. While the program has a strong focuson health, the scope is beingwidened in 2018 to include startups targetingthe agriculture, food and beverage industries. It plans to fund up to another20 startups in food and agriculture this year and is actively seeking themout at international conferences.“We consume too much food, we produce too little food, and our farmingscrews up the environment,” saysMarc Buckley, a startup jurymember andan open innovation advisor to Bayer Foundations. “Innovators are neededfor a reframing of the global food system.”

Analyzing The ThreatBayer is not the only big corporate fishing for food and beverage start-ups.For some companies in the sector, investments in disruptive startups couldliterally be a lifeline. Take the case of food companies such as Tyson Foods,Pilgrim’s andSandersonFarms.More than80%of these companies’ revenuescome from selling meat. But as startups introduce technologies to createbeef, chicken, duck, shrimp, fish and diary products from plants or animalcells, food giants are suddenly grappling with a future in which proteinisn’t dominated by traditional animal sources, notes the research firm CBInsights. The $90 billion global meat industry has evolved into a complex

global business that involves farms and feedlots aswell asmeatmiddlemen,like processing and storage centers, in addition to transportation and logisticsand slaughterhouses. Together the seven largest meat companies combinefor over $71billion inmarket capitalization,with the largest, Tyson, boastinga $26 billion valuation, according to CB Insights data.But now meatless food products from beef-free burgers are threateningthe future of the meat giants. In addition to offering new products, suchas alternative snacks like Beyond The Shoreline’s kelp jerky or Exo’s energybars (which aremade from cricket flour), these startups have the potentialto upend all parts of the meat production process.In the future, companies likeMemphisMeats could cut production, slaughter,and processing out of themeat-production value chain, predicts CB Insights.Going forward, the meat value chain could be simplified dramatically as“cleanmeat” laborfactoriestaketheplaceof farms, feedlotsandslaughterhouses.Such a shift would have a major impact not just on a variety of businessesbut also on land, water and food use worldwide. (See the story on pages8-12.) Tom Hayes, the CEO of Tyson Foods, has publicly acknowledgedthe traction of products like those made by Impossible Foods, a WorldEconomic ForumTechnology Pioneer, saying “plant-based protein is growingalmost, at this point, a little faster than animal-based, so I think themigrationmay continue in that direction.”

Investing In The FutureImpossible Foods, which has raised over $250 million in venture capital,uses heme, an iron-rich molecule in animal proteins to replicate a “meaty”flavor in their plant-based products.After closing a $75 million late-stage round in August, to aid in rampingup its production and distribution channel, the company announced thatit’s expanding distribution to include university cafeterias, museum cafes,and a U.S. burger chain.In the future, Impossible Foods could apply its technology to new animal-free substitutes, such as pork, seafood and lamb—even further disruptingtraditional meat corporates’ frozen or prepared food products, predicts CBInsights. Tyson has set up a venture fund called Tyson New Ventures andis looking to invest in “great-tasting alternative proteins.” Its first investment,made in 2016, was in a startup called Beyond Meat, which makes plant-

CORPORATE-BACKEDHEALTH&FOODSTARTUPSTOWATCH

CASEBIA THERAPEUTICSUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : A joint venturebetween Bayer and CRISPRTherapeutics, focused on usingCRISPR/Cas9 to treat the geneticcauses of bleeding disorders,autoimmune disease, blindness,hearing loss and heart disease.http://casebia.com

based burgers and other imitation meat products such as chicken stripsand beef crumbles. Beyond Meat has also has been experimenting with aplant-based pork product. The food trading giant Cargill has invested inMemphis Meats, which uses stem cells from real animals to grow meat ina lab. Its investors include Bill Gates ofMicrosoft, Richard Branson of VirginGroup and the former GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welsh. Nestle, whichowns several frozen food brands, has acquired the vegan prepared foodsstartup Sweet Earth.By providing new food sources, meal replacements and dairy substitutescould further chip away at traditional meatmarket share, says CB Insights.Companies like the pea-proteinmilk producer Ripple Foods, the non-dairycheese provider KiteHill and the AI-powered egglessmayo producer NotCoalready are selling their products in grocery stores. Another company,Perfect Day, is applying gene sequencing and 3D printing to create milkwithout the cow. The company has raised over $2million disclosed funding

from Temasek Holdings and other investors. Although it is still early days,startups look well poised to help deliver safe, affordable and sustainableprotein to people as population growthmoves towards nine billion. Others,such as the those Bayer is investing in, could also help feed the world andmake food production more stable through novel farming and fishingmethods.By betting on startups that are disrupting the industry from farm to table,existing players are hoping to ensure that despite major industry upheavalthey will continue to play an important role in the future of food. “Here’sthe issue: If we’re going to feed nine and a half billion people around theworld by 2050, we have to be part of the solution. Big food has to get inthe ballgame,” Hayes, Tyson’s CEO, said during a November interview onCNBC in the U.S. that focused on sustainability. “Our strategic intent is tobe the world’s best, most sustainable protein supplier, bar none.”J.L.S.

— P.37

SAFETYNET TECHNOLOGIESUNITED KINGDOMWHAT IT DOES : Makes light-emittingdevices to increase the selectivity ofcommercial fishing practices.It was accepted into a 2018 BayerFoundations startup group.

http://sntech.co.uk

THRIVING GREENGERMANYWHAT IT DOES : Grows Spirulina,a superfood with lots of protein,to combat malnutrition in places likeTurkana, Kenya that are too hot anddry for conventional farming.

www.thriving-green.com

DIPTERA NUTRITIONITALYWHATITDOES: Raises insect larvae onlocally sourced vegetables and bakedgoods that are no longer useful forhuman consumption, then processesit into a protein-rich meal which isused in compound animal feed.

http://dipteranutrition.com

PRIMEBEEFINLANDWHATITDOES: Developing a vaccinefor honey bees to protect themagainst microbial disease, helpingshore up the world’s bee populations,which are needed as pollinators ofthe world’s food ecosystems andagricultural businesses.www.primebee.develup.fi

OVERFISHING AND BYCATCH ARE MASSIVE GLOBALISSUES WITHFEW CLEAR SOLUTIONS.

Source : Safetynet Technologies


PersonalizedMedicine— New advances promise to make healthcare moretargeted, effective and less expensive.By Chris O’Brien

Andrew Thompson was strolling through the exhibits at anAmerican Heart Association conference 15 years ago when he noticedsomething strange. While the world beyond the exhibition hall was beingtransformed by a digital revolution, there was scarcely a computer in sightin the booths of pharmaceutical companies gathered to attract the interestof world-classmedical professionals.He pulled aside a friend, and said: “We need to figure out how to make adrug talk to a computer when it is swallowed sowe can help to personalizemedicine.” That was the seed for what became Proteus Digital Health, a2009 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer company that madeprecision medicine history last November when the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration approved its schizophrenia pill with an ingestible sensorembedded to help track whether it’s being taken properly. “It’s my beliefthat this is one of themost important developments inmedicine in decades,”says Thompson, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “It’s the beginning ofa whole new drug category that includes silicon and software as part ofthe product.”Certainly, it’s one of the strongest signals that a new age in whichmedicinecan take into account genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors formoreeffective treatments may at last be upon us. Almost 18 years after thehumangenomewas sequenced, the plunging cost of genetic analysis coupledwith shrinking electronics and exponentially more powerful computing

HEALTH

has created huge buzz around precision medicine, which will be a topic ofdiscussion at the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January23-26. Pharmaceutical companies, venture capitalists, researchers andregulators are scrambling to figure out how – and how fast – to embracea field that holds the potential to make health care more effective and lessexpensive. “We are seeing now a recognition that the science and thetechnology is maturing,” says Dr. Genya Dana, head of Precision Medicinefor the World Economic Forum. “It’s getting to the point where we haveenough data to make sense of where can really deliver and target ourtreatments in amore personal way. This has been a dream for a long time.”The PrecisionMedicine project is based at the Forums’ Center for the FourthIndustrial Revolution in San Francisco, which opened in late 2016. Danajoined to head the project last July after serving for several years as seniorscience policy officer in the U.S. Department of State.

An ”X-ray of the Immune System”The Forum’s decision to embrace this as a critical topic proved to be welltimed. There has been a frenzy of breakthroughs and deal makings drivenby precision medicine, including an announcement in early January byMicrosoft of a newpartnershipwith Seattle-basedAdaptive Biotechnologies,to combine the latest advances in AI and machine learning with recentbreakthroughs in biotechnology to map and decode the human immunesystem. Together, the two companies hope to create a universal blood testthat reads a person’s immune system to detect a wide variety of diseasesin their earliest stage, when they can be most effectively diagnosed andtreated. “Imagine aworldwith an ‘X-ray of the immune system.’ This wouldopen newdoors to predictivemedicine, as a person’s immunological historyis believed to shape their response to new pathogens and treatments inways that are currently impossible to explore,” Peter Lee,Microsoft’s corporatevice president of AI + Research, wrote in a blog post.IBM, for its part, has partnered with the Munich Leukemia Laboratory tocombine their respective expertise in AI, genomics and bioinformatics to

mine the human genome for data that could create precision medicinetreatments for leukemia patients.In 2017, the Precision Medicine Group in Maryland, which makes toolsand infrastructure for researchers and drug companies in this field, raised$275 million in venture capital. Syapse, which makes software to helpresearchers and doctors manage patients’ genetic information, raised $30million last year. Illumina Ventures, a new venture capital firm, announcedit had raised a fund of $230 million to invest in genomics and precisionmedicine deals. But the biggest news by far was the announcement inAugust that Gilead Scienceswould pay $11.9 billion to acquire Kite Pharma.Kite was named a ForumTechnology Pioneer in 2015 for creating a systemthat developed cancer treatments by taking genetic information from apatients’ immune system, using it to engineer cancer-fighting cells, andthen introducing those cells into the body.In a conference call with investment analysts to discuss the deal, Gilead’sCEO, JohnMilligan, hailed Kite’s work on this new line of treatment. “Theirwork has opened a clear path towards a potential cure for lymphomapatientswhohave runoutofoptions thataredesperately inneedof treatment,”he says. To Esther Dyson, an influential startup investor who has focusedon genetics and health care over the past decade, this sudden rush of dealsis exciting. But she urged caution, noting that even if it seems like the fieldis accelerating, there is a long way to go before precision medicine makesa widespread impact.“It’s advanced significantly over the past decade and yet it’s still just at thebeginning,” she says. “We understand some subset of the genome. Butthere’s still a whole lot we don’t know.” There are other challenges aswell: Among the issues the project will explore at the Forum’s annualmeeting will be how to make sure populations from developing countriesdon’t get left behind. And then there’s the question from insurers andgovernments about who is going to pay for research and treatment andwhether those costs will truly be justified.“Some of these questions are not new to precision medicine,” Dana said.“But they’re becoming more pressing.”

PRECISIONMEDICINESTARTUPSTOWATCH

DNANEXUSUNITED STATESWHAT IT DOES : Provides a cloud-based platform for companies doinggenomics-related work to manage,analyze, and share data.

www.dnanexus.com

SAPHETORSWITZERLANDWHATIT DOES: Provides genomic datathat clinicians can use to make a faster,more precise diagnosis and bettertailor treatment recommendations.

www.saphetor.com

PRECISION MEDICINE GROUPUNITED STATESWHATITDOES: Software tools thatallow other companies to manageprecision medicine drug development.It raised $275 million in venture capitalin late 2017.

www.precisionmedicinegrp.com

— P.39


RETAIL

Thanks to a predictive logistics system thatusesBigDataanalysisto enable it to dispatch goods more effectively, the online retailer JD.comwas able to deliver the first iPhone 7 to a consumer just 10 minutes after itwent on sale in China last year. The Chinese e-commerce giant, whichreported revenues of $37.5 billion in 2016, is making a name for itself asa logistics leader by building the country’s largest low-altitude drone logisticsnetwork and automating its distribution centers to optimize supply-chainefficiencies.But JD.com is not stopping there. It is counting on reaching new customersand securing valuable data by connecting online and offline shopping.Richard Liu, JD.com’s founder and CEO, and a scheduled speaker at theWorld Economic Forum’s annual meeting January 23-26, will outline astrategy he calls “retail-as-a-service” during a scheduled session in Davos.JD.com says this online-offline hybrid strategywill not only improve its ownbusiness, but also help its partners reduce costs, improve operational effi-ciencies and reach new consumer groups through its smart logistics andsupply-chainmanagement capabilities aswell as sophisticated Internetmar-keting tools. It is part of a trend in China.In addition to JD.com, big Chinese Internet players such as Alibaba havebegun transforming brick-and-mortar stores by integrating online, offline,logistics and data across a single value chain.In the past fewmonths JD.comhas announced the opening of a high-tech supermarket chain called 7Freshand unmanned convenience stores in China. Like the rival e-commercegiant Alibaba, which recently opened its own line of physical stores, JD.com allows shoppers to use a mobile app and digital payments. The storesalso collect data on customers in other ways: In the grocery store, shop-ping assistant robots follow customers around and sensors on the shelf in-dicate their preferences and feed the info back to JD.com. JD.com’s un-

manned convenience stores are using facial and recognition technology de-veloped in its own labs to register payment and product identity, meaningcustomers do not have to wait in a checkout line. Cameras on the ceilingsof the stores recognize customers’ movements and generate heat maps oftheir activity tomonitor traffic flow, product selection and preferences, hel-ping store owners to stock efficiently.Through AI, Big Data and other innovative technologies, regardless ofwhether a customer is in a physical store or ordering online “we knowwherethe customer is and what they like and can ensure that the right productsare in place,” Bao Yan, director of planning at JD Logistics, said in an inter-view with The Innovator. “This is important to beat the competition andprovide a good customer experience.”

Big Data Drives EfficiencyFor example, by leveraging Big Data analysis, the company says it is ableto identify the likely relevancy of different products for its online customers.JD.com says it can tell that most customers who buy product A would alsolike to buy product B, together in one order. By relocating relevant pro-ducts frommultiplewarehouses into one it is able to cut downpick-up costs,packing and delivery time. Customers also receive fewer parcels per singleorder. According to tests, JD.com says it can lower the ratio for splitting or-ders by 50%.By leveraging Big Data, the company says it is additionally able to placeproducts at optimized locations at warehouses, helping to make the pick-up process at warehouses 25% more efficient. JD.com spun out its logis-tics arm as an independent company last April. Customers include the U.S.retail giant Walmart. JD.com hosts the U.S. company’s e-commerce plat-

RevampingRetail— There is a very different future in store that integrates online,offline, logistics and data across a single value chain.

— P.41

pany’s business is growing very well,” says Bao. Key, she adds, is the factthat JD.com owns its fulfillment facilities and controls delivery. “We are aone-stop shop,” she says. Bao also attributes the company’s success to tech-nology. “For the last 12 years it has been all about technology and we arecontinuing to invest in AI and robotics,” she says.The company has opened a fully automated warehouse in Shanghai.Some of that technology is being rolled out to other warehouses now,says Bao. But, she cautions, it doesn’t make sense to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. JD.com plans fully automated warehouses for differentcategories of products. “We handle products from categories that includeelectronics to fashion and food. You don’t automate the picking up ofcellphones the same way you pick up garments. We have learned thatwe need to have the right sets of data in order to automate the process.We need algorithms to recognize an object and pick it up correctly andload it in an efficient way. The amount of data and quality of data andhow to apply it and the algorithms are key.”JD.com is also focusing on automating the last mile for deliveries by usingdrones, where it makes economic sense, such as in rural, mountainousareas in China with very poor infrastructure. While drone delivery is stillin a pilot phase, the company has logged more than 100,000 hours oftests, says Bao. “Battery life is still somewhat of an issue but the technolo-gy is mostly ready for widespread use,” she says.While the adoption of all of this technology has helped the logistics businessto boom, JD.com is betting that its move into physical commerce will fur-ther boost its online business, bring in new shoppers, richer data sets andnew sources of revenue, and help it further disrupt traditional retail whiledelivering better results for itself and for its customers.J.L.S.

form in China, permitting shoppers to buy products directly fromWalmartstores. JD.com also handles deliveries in China for Walmart stores and thetwo companies are expanding their partnership to include inventory, saysBao. For example, if customers order bottled water on JD.com’s site theymay be directed to the nearest Walmart store. In addition to Walmart, “weare working with a lot of e-commerce companies and our logistics com-

JD.com’s fully-automated sorting center in Kunshanin Jiangsu Province, China.

— 99% of China’s population is covered— 92% of orders are delivered same-day or next-day— 6 major logistics networks: normal-sized items, bulky

items, cold chain, B2B, cross-border, crowd-sourced— 7,000 + delivery stations— 405 warehouses— 65,000 + delivery employees— 9,000 orders filled per hour at automated test sorting

center, work that would normally take 180 warehouseemployees to accomplish.

JD.COM’S LOGISTIC STRENGTHS:


The first thing that the groups collaborating on Boston’sambitious autonomous vehicle project want you to know is that it is not justabout driverless cars and trucks. While autonomous vehicles promise tomake travel safer andmore sustainable, they are just one part of a necessary,farmore fundamental effort to re-think every aspect of urban transportation.That’s the key takeaway from the first 18months of a collaboration betweentheWorld Economic Forum and the city of Boston. If autonomous vehiclesor any other disruptive transportation service evolve in isolation theycould clog the roads with more, rather than fewer cars, and lead to a hostof other unintended consequences.Planners worry that falling transportation costs and increased conveniencewould encourage people to order a pizza delivered by a self-driving car;or offer new liberty for elderly residents who can’t drive, leading to anexplosion in vehicles on the roads. Then there are the potential jobs lossesfor taxi and delivery drivers, and the risk that sprawl will increase if peopledecide they can live further outside the city.To leverage the innovation sweeping across the transportation sector, citiesmust seize control of their transportation future rather than letting it besteered by for-profit companies launching disruptive services, accordingto the initial results of the Boston project, which are scheduled to bepresented at the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January23-26. To integrate innovative private and public transportation services,the Forum recommends deploying a mobility platform that gives accessto new entrants while allowing local governments to retain ownership of

transportation data and ensure the system serves the broader needs ofthe community. “It’s been an evolution from talking about autonomouscars to the future of urbanmobility,” says JohnMoavenzadeh, head of themobility industries and system initiative at the World Economic Forum.“Now it’s about thinking about the whole city as a system.”The Boston experiment is expected to serve as a model for other citiesand regions. At the annual meeting, a Forum working group will begindiscussing next steps, including expanding the project to a fewmore citiesthis year and developing a mobility platform for regional transportation.With advances in autonomous driving accelerating, and a growing numberof cities grappling with how to adapt, the goal is to develop a blueprintthat helps cities and regions test assumptions as they go along while alsoreaching consensus on policymaking.“It’s never been about the city of Boston per se,” says Moavenzadeh. “It’saboutmaking cities better in general.” The project is the result of a fortuitouscollision between two transportation projects that began separately aboutthree years ago, one organized by the Forum and the other by the city ofBoston.In 2014, the Forum convened aworking group of 35 representativesfrom the automotive industry, local and regional governments, traditionaltech giants, and transportation startups to map out issues and questionsraised by autonomous vehicles. In the spring of 2016, the group movedfrom theoretical talks to practical experimentation by inviting cities toapply to be the first test site, a process that led to the selection of Bostonin July 2016. Bostonwas appealing for a number of reasons. The economy

RethinkingUrbanMobility— A collaboration between the World Economic Forum and the city of Boston serves as a model for howcities can seize control of their transportation future.By Chris O’Brien

That encouraged the city to move into the next phase of testing in late2016: Putting autonomous vehicles on the road. “If you had asked me ifthis would take six months, I would have guessed much longer,” saysNikolaus Lang, a senior partner and managing director at BCG. “I wouldhave not expected such an overwhelming number of local and cityadministrators to push AV vehicles at this speed and this dimension.” Inlate 2016, the city signed an agreement with NuTonomy, an autonomousvehicle software company spun out of a project at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT) that was named a Technology Pioneer in2017 by the Forum. The city approved two more testing agreements inJune 2017 with the self-driving car companies Optimus Ride and Delphi.

is booming, it’s home to renowned research universities, has a thrivingtech scene, and has a sprawling public transportation network. At thesame time the city’s public transport systems have been criticized for failingto serve the poorest residents, and the economic and population surgehas strained its roads, trains, and buses. Boston was painfully aware ofthese issues. Which is why, under Mayor Martin Walsh, the city in 2014launched its own effort at long-term transportation planning called “GoBoston 2030.” The city wanted to envision a future that would create amore sustainable and equitable transportation network. Autonomousvehicles were seen as way to potentially achieve those goals. But it wasfar from obvious how a city like Boston could introduce them while alsoimprovingoptions for pedestrians, bicycling, andbetter public transportation.Among the concerns at the outset was the growing evidence that otherdisruptive transportation options, such as ride-hailing services like Uberand Lyft, had increased the number of cars on the roads in some cities aspeople opted to call an Uber for a short ride rather take a bus or subway.“Autonomous vehicles risk becoming victims of their own success, increasingthe demand for transportation by making mobility cheaper and moreconvenient,” Boston Consulting Group (BCG)wrote in a report it publishedlast October.

Promising ResultsTobeginwrestlingwith these issues, theBostonproject initiated conservationswith the Forum’s working group, representatives of BCG, and executivesat the various city agencies involved, including Boston Commissioner ofTransportationGinaFiandaca;ChrisOsgood,Chiefof theStreets,Transportation,and Sanitation; and Kris Carter and Nigel Jacob, co-chairs of the Mayor’sOffice of New Urban Mechanics, a civic innovation team that was startedin 2010. And just to emphasize the complexity cities face, there was alsoaneed to coordinatewithMassDOT, theMassachusetts BayTransit Authority,and the Massachusetts Port Authority.“The City of Boston’s partnership with the World Economic Forum hasprovided a tremendous opportunity to implement safe and increasinglycomplex testing of this innovative technology in a controlled environmenton Boston’s streets,” says Fiandaca. “Our objective is to be able to fosterthis technology and make it available to our residents.” The partnersgathered transportation data from sources ranging from the city to privatecompanies like UPS. This information was plugged into a model built byBCG that attempted to map every possible variable — including taxis,bicycles, pedestrians, stop lights and parking spaces — surrounding partof a neighborhood bordering the city hall. From there, the model beganto look at two variations for introducing autonomous vehicles: a gradualshift to self-driving cars and a “disruptive” shift. Each scenario includeda few extra autonomous vehicle variables: privately owned cars, taxis,ride-sharing taxis and autonomous shuttle buses.The results were promising. Both models showed less congestion, shortertravel times, and a drop in harmful emissions. Further, the improvementsin each case were greater using the more aggressive, disruptive scenario.

TRANSPORTATION

— P.43

“It’sbeenanevolutionfromtalkingaboutautonomouscarstothefutureofurbanmobility.Nowit’saboutthinkingaboutthewholecityasasystem.”JohnMoavenzadeh,Head of the mobility industries and system initiativeat the World Economic Forum.

OPTIMUS RIDEUNITED STATES

WHATITDOES: Self-drivingtechnologiesthat can achieve level 4 autonomy thatare then built by partners.

www.optimusride.com

AUTONOMOUSVEHICLESTARTUPSTOWATCH

In November, Delphi acquired NuTonomy, and then spun that out into anew self-driving company called Aptiv in December. These tests wereinitially limited to specially designated zoneswithin the city and eventuallyexpanded. Each car company began filing regular reports with numbersand observations about how people reacted to the self-driving experiencebut also on what the companies themselves were learning.Take nuTonomy for instance. In a November report, the company notedthat the feedback from riders was glowing, with most saying they “neverfelt unsafe” and elderly riders appreciating the newfoundmobility. On theother hand, in another report, nuTonomy described some of the technicalchallenges. “Our autonomous vehicles have repeatedly encountered seagullson the road surface and flying within the range of our sensors — we nowidentify them correctly,” the company wrote. The project has also giventhe city of Boston a way to help its residents gradually get used to thenotion of self-driving cars by seeing them on the streets in limited numbersand trying them at public events.“We thought giving testing partners accessto the roadways would play a big part in socializing people to the idea ofAVs (autonomous vehicles),” Osgood said. “There’s no better way to dothat than actually having them on the road.”

Lessons for the FutureAs the Forum prepares to expand to new cities this year, participants havebeen focusing on six key lessons so far from the Boston project: citiesshould consider all varieties of autonomous transport (private cars, carpoolservices and shuttles); a city’s unique dynamics and needs should be takeninto account; cities should not worry about actually owning all the formsof transportation; cities should enable deployment via regulations; citiesshould be proactive by developing a plan that allows them to manage thetransition as well as the new ecosystem that evolves; and cities shouldhave a centralized digital tool that will serve as a digital mobility platformto coordinate all new and old transportation. On the Forum’s agenda isalso the question of how regions like Boston should build such a mobilityplatform. The goal is to have a kind of centralized dashboard that spans

all transportation modes to allow city officials to make sure any changeshelp achieve the municipality’s goals. To that end, the Forum recentlybrought into the project door2door, a Berlin-based startup that makes amobility platform for cities. Co-founderMaximNohroudi has long advocatedthe need for cities to control their transportation future rather than beingdominated by private, for-profit companies. He and others interviewedare optimistic about the autonomous transportation revolution— as longas cities are shaping that future in a way that fits the best interests of theircommunities.


TRANSPORTATION

CHRONOCAMFRANCE

WHATITDOES: Develops systems thatallow machines to ”see” in much thesame way that the human brainprocesses images from the retina.Applications include guidance forautonomous cars.www.chronocam.com

DOOR2DOORGERMANY

WHATITDOES: Makes a softwareplatform that allows cities and regionsto gather data from all modes of publicand private transportation and optimizefor new technologies like self-drivingvehicles.www.door2door.io

NAVYAFRANCE

WHATITDOES: Makes driverlessshuttles and taxis that are electric, with60 already deployed and many others intesting with cities around the world.

www.navya.tech

APTIVUNITED KINGDOM

WHATITDOES: Makes a range ofconnected car technologies. It wasrecently spun out from DelphiAutomotive, and includes nuTonomy,the Boston-based autonomous vehiclestartup that was acquired last autumn.www.aptiv.com

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The manufacturing industry appears to be next in line formassive disruption. Historically, operating efficiency in manufacturinghas come through specialization, scale, and repetitive task robots. Thefactory of the future will operate much differently: it will use advances inrobotics, artificial intelligence (AI), material science, 3D printing, and theInternet of Things to allow every object in a factory to communicate withthe others, and directions for assembly to be made at the product levelrather thana central hub. Thiswill help reduce the cost ofmaking customizeditems to be on par with the cost of mass production and offering a hostof other advantages.AI is well suited to addressing the challenges facing manufacturing, suchas variable quality and yield, inflexible production line design, inabilityto manage capacity, and rising production costs, argues Andrew Ng, aformer head of AI initiatives at the Internet giants Google and Baidu. AIcan help tackle these issues, and improve quality control, shorten designcycles, remove supply-chain bottlenecks, reduce materials and energywaste, and improve production yields, says Ng, who has launched a newcompany, Landing.ai, to help manufacturers harness AI. However manymanufacturers are proceedingwith caution due to concern overwidespread

TheFutureofManufacturing— Smart factories have the potential to add $500 billionto $1.5 trillion in value to the global economy withinfive years. The World Economic Forum wants to helpmanufacturers and governments seize the opportunity.By Chris O’Brien

PRODUCTION

job losses, the digital skills gap and an escalation of cyber attacks onfactories once theuseof the Industrial Internet ofThingsbecomeswidespread.(Seethestoryaboutcybersecurityonpages26and27.)Somanymanufacturersare proceeding with caution.In fact, a new study by TheWorld Economy Forum and AJ Kearney foundthat no country has reached the frontier of readiness, let alone harnessedthe full potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in production. Whilethere are early leaders to learn from, these countries are also still navigatingthe early stages of transformation. That’s why “Shaping the Future ofProduction” is on the agenda at the Forum’s annual meeting in Davos,Switzerland, January 23-26. The Forum officially launched this as a projectarea in early 2017, an offshoot of other work it was doing related tomanufacturing economies. “If you’re really going tomake this work, we’vegot to go further and faster,” says Helena Leurent, head of governmentengagement and future of production at the Forum.At the annual meeting the project’s goal is to explore ways to bridge boththe gap between national governments, who are setting their own industrialpolicies, and the divide between governments and industry. Given thatmany manufacturing businesses cross borders, having greater alignmentbetween these actors couldgoa longway to jumpstarting this transformation,Leurent says.

Productivity GainsThepotential gains from the adoption of new technologies inmanufacturingare seductive for both governments and industry. In a July 2017 Capgeminireport, the consulting firm estimates thatmanufacturers who fully embracethese new technologies will see a seven-fold increase in productivity by2022. And, Capgemini projects that smart factories have the potential toadd $500 billion to $1.5 trillion in value to the global economy withinfive years.“AI has the potential to pave theway formanufacturing to poweranewgenerationof productions, devices andexperiences,”saysNg. “BringingAI to manufacturing will also help revitalize manufacturing jobs in theU.S. and globally.”Ng’s company, Landing.ai, signed a partnership with Foxconn last July todevelop “AI technologies, talent and systems that build on the corecompetenciesof the twocompanies.” Their statedaimis tohelpmanufacturerswho lack expertise in new fields like AI and find it difficult to build theirown teams in-house given the broader competition for talent. TheCapgeminireport notes that while 76% of manufacturers either have a smart factory

project or are developing one, only 14% are satisfied with their level ofsmart factory success. And only 6% have reached an advanced stage ofactually implementing these technologies.GregMulholland, founder andCEOofCitrine Informatics, aWorldEconomicForum 2017 Technology Pioneer, knows how hard it can be for industrialpartners to embrace radical newmethods. Founded in 2013 and based inthe heart of Silicon Valley, Citrine Informatics draws on big data and AIto bring new efficiencies to the process of creating new materials forproducts. Traditionally, material science has used the classic scientificmethod approach to create breakthrough substances that in turn enablenew products, says Mulholland. But increasingly, product makers aredemanding new forms, particularly for things like consumer electronics,every 18 months to two years. Citrine uses a wide range of data fromexternal sources such as research databases and internal data from acompany’s manufacturing system to accelerate the development of newmaterials. But to really leverage that service, ideally clients need to havetheir factories equipped with as many sensors and data-gathering pointsas possible.Making those physical changes can be slow going, and requiresbringing together many other technologies.

“Most companies don’t have a systemized data structure built with AI inmind,” Mulholland says. “We really need to provide a data platform thatallows them to capture their data and make it useful. When I think abouthow the world is going to change I have a very clear view of how thesethings are going to come together. And the ones that are best at integratingthem are going to have a major advantage.”

Optimizing DataLocated not far from Citrine Informatics in Palo Alto, California is Maana,a company founded in 2012 that is also trying to help manufacturers leapinto the future. Maana, another of the Forum’s Technology Pioneers, hasdeveloped a kind of industrial search engine to help factories optimizethe use of the data they collect once they’ve gathered it. Maana co-founderand CEO, Babur Ozden says companies are eager to try these solutionsbecause productivity gains have slowed in recent years. Many are anxiousabout being left behind as they see competitors with huge resources, likeGE or Airbus, investing and starting to reap some benefits. “The companies

— P.47

A factory modeled by GE , a pioneering leaderin the field of Digital Twins, which is a digitalrepresentation of a physical asset and itscontext within an enterprise.Digital Twins combine physics-basedmodeling, data and artificial intelligenceto understand the past and predict futureoutcomes.

and the governments that can adopt these new technologies are showingsignificant benefits that are not incremental, but are radically different,”Ozden says.

3D PrintingTake the case of 3D printing, a customizable means of production, whichhas the potential to drastically reduce material costs, shrink supply chains,improve product performance, and increase design freedom in multipleindustries, says the research firm CB Insights. GE is the dominant player inthe space, with six equity investments since 2013 through GE Ventures,three acquisitions, a dedicated additivemanufacturing division, andmultiple3D printed parts in service, according to CB Insights’ data. BMW, alongwithits venture arm, has invested in the World Economic Forum TechnologyPioneer Desktop Metal, as well as in Carbon and Xometry. It has used 3Dprinting in prototyping and tooling for decades, and introduced 3D printedparts into series production in 2012. Siemens has invested in Markforgedand acquired Material Solutions through its next47 fund. The Germanindustrial conglomerateusesadditivemanufacturing throughout itsbusinesses,including a 3D-printed gas turbine blade.That said, in addition to issues like talent and strategy, Leurent says the verynatureofhowcompaniesexperimentwithnewtechnologies isoftenproblematic.For instance, pilot projects can take longer than expected, and might notreveal benefits because they are too small in scale. In addition, many ofthese technologies remain far out of reach formediumand small businesses.And governments and employees understandably worry that productivitygains from Industry 4.0 become job killers rather than job creators. What’smore the Forum’s newReadiness for the Future of Production Report 2018,found that 90% of of the countries from Latin America, Middle East, Africa

and Eurasia included in the assessment have a low level of readiness, sothere is a danger of creating a two-speed world. At the annual meeting,Leurent wants participants to help tackle these challenges. Topics on thetable include: Could an industry or coalition of countries create a networkof test centers to help smaller manufacturers? How can countries draft theright regulations to encourage adoption? How can employees be trained orre-trained to have the necessary skills? Andwhat kind of sustainability goalsand programs can help limit environmental impacts?“It’s not enough to be doing this on a piecemeal basis,” says Leurent .“We know the shift is coming. As we go through a period of great changes,wecould, ifweshape theright conversation, change theproductivity paradigm.The challenge is how to look at the opportunity and lean into it, ratherthan letting the technology drive us.”

CITRINE INFORMATICSUNITED STATES

WHAT IT DOES : Appliesartificialintelligenceto large-scaledatatoanticipatehowmaterialsandchemicalswillbehave,helpingcompaniesachievetheirR&D,productdevelopmentandmanufacturingmilestonesfaster.www.citrine.io

DESKTOP METALUNITED STATES

WHATITDOES: Developed a3D-printing system that can massproduce metal components, allowingteams to go directly from compu-ter-aided design to rapid prototypingand volume production.www.desktopmetal.com

MAANAUNITED STATES

WHATITDOES: Maana’s knowledgegraph, coupled with advanced AIalgorithms, semantic search, and deeplearning, helps industrial companiesmake faster and more relevantdata-driven decisions.www.maana.io


PRODUCTION

“Aswegothroughaperiodofgreatchanges,wecould,ifweshapetherightconversation,changetheproductivityparadigm.Thechallengeishowtolookattheopportunityandleanintoit, ratherthanlettingthetechnologydriveus”.HelenaLeurent,Head of government engagement and future of productionat the World Economic Forum.

PRODUCTIONSTARTUPSTOWATCH

GUEST ESSAY

“Responsible AI.” In fact, more than 80% of the 1,090 companies studiedin a recent Accenture survey believe that CEO involvement is critical toensuring AI systems are implemented and maintained responsibly. Oneimportant component of Responsible AI is around organizational changeand re-designing job descriptions. In other words, putting people in placeto make sure that algorithms are being implemented responsibly inside theorganization. This will require the creation of totally new roles and evenbusiness functions — which our research has found is already happeningat leading companies—and is one of theways that peoplewill increasinglycollaborate with intelligent technologies.

The Challenges AheadSelf-driving vehicles are a great example. In addition to the technical hurdles— from the hardware such as cameras and laser-guided systems to thesoftware thatmakes it allwork seamlessly—other issuesneed tobeaddressed.For instance, while self-driving systems will always prioritize the safety ofhumans over property, how will they prioritize between the safety of thevehicle’s passengers and that of pedestrians? This is one area where newjob descriptions are needed to ensure that Responsible AI is incorporatednot only into the algorithms but into business processes and throughout theorganization.Another key element is experimentation to ensure that an AI system is readyfor prime time. Traditionally, once an algorithmworks well, it’s put into thesystem and scaled globally. But if there’s bias in the system— such as, say,a pricing bias in a mortgage decision-making model — you’ve just scaledthe bias globally, potentially affecting tens of thousands of people. That’swhy it’s important to start small and takea small-scale test-and-learnapproachbefore applying AI broadly into the enterprise. We need to design roles forpeople who know how to run these responsible AI experiments and whofocus on making sure AI is implemented in a way that’s sustainable andbalances society’s interests with business goals. But bringing AI into theenterprise isn’t something that can just be delegated to the IT or analyticsdepartment. The CEO and others in the C-suite need to build and enforcethe culture around Responsible AI — a sentiment confirmed by more thanthree-quarters of executives we surveyed recently, who acknowledged theimportance of C-suite involvement. This means having the CEO sit downregularly with his or her AI experts — including potentially new roles suchas chief AI officers and chief data supply chain officers— to help define thecompany’s principles and stance around responsible AI and the emergentissues it raises. Some major European automakers are already taking thisapproach, with their CEOs and chief strategy officers working closely withtheir engineering teams to figure out how they can incorporate ResponsibleAI into the autonomous-driving systems they’re developing.Clearly, there’s a lot at stake here, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.Responsible AIwill require significant changes to theworkforce of the future,far beyond some of the issues we’ve identified here.Stay tuned for more on this topic in a new book we’ve co-authoredentitledHuman+Machine: ReimaginingWork in the Age of Al, comingfrom Harvard Business Press in March.

One of the hot topics for many CEOs as we move forward in2018 is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is designedto give citizens in the European Unionmore control over their personal dataand to limit the flow of personal data across the borders of EU countries.While most C-suite attention on GDPR—which takes effect in late May—is likely focused on legal and regulatory aspects, there’s amore fundamentaland strategic discussion that CEOs need to be involved in: artificialintelligence (AI). Why? Because data is the fuel of AI, and theimplementation of GDPR could render certain critical data sets — aroundidentity, location, purchasing habits and other areas — unusable becausethey compromise consumers’ privacy. GDPR also allows consumers to optin on their “right to erasure,” enabling them to have personal data aboutthem deleted.Some global companies are dealing with this challenge through the veryuse of AI-based solutions themselves. One large consumer electronicsmanufacturer, for instance, is creatinganAI “firewall,”whereall theprocessingis done anonymously by AI agents. That’s just one of the many interestingapproaches that leading companies are taking to address GDPR, which isexpected to impact a range of industries; in this instance, AI is not only partof the challenge, but part of the solution.Ensuring compliance with GDPRis urgent due to a fast-approaching deadline, but global companies alsoneed to be thinking longer term because the issues it raises are larger thanjust the explicit regulations related to data explainability and the right toerasure. Specifically, they’re about a broader set of principles related todeveloping fair, safe and transparent AI systems — what Accenture calls

Cansoftfleet,a mEuropeabybillionhasconfebecom

TheUberjortutogoodmethinthetonowexea

LeadershipintheAgeofAI

ByPaul DaughertyChief Technology and InnovationOfficer, Accenture

H. JimWilsonA managing director at AccentureResearch

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POUR NOS LECTEURS FRANCOPHONES

EDITO ET TABLE DES MATIERES

LE BRIEFL’impact de l’intelligence artificielle sur l’economie, une initiativepour mettre en place une gouvernance de l’IA, et les quatrechiffres-clés qui empêchent les dirigeants de dormir.

TRIBUNE DE KLAUS SCHWAB, FONDATEUR ET PRÉSIDENTEXÉCUTIF DU WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

A LA UNEPRET POUR LA QUATRIÈME RÉVOLUTION INDUSTRIELLE ?Les technologies émergentes révolutionnent de nombreuxsecteurs, en apportant de rapides changements à grandeéchelle et aux conséquences énormes, qui nécessitent uneapproche systémique et une collaboration accrue entre toutesles parties prenantes.

INTERVIEW DE KAY FIRTH-BUTTERFIELD, DIRECTRICE DE L’IAAU WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

TOUT DEVIENT DIGITALMaintenant que les humains, les animaux, les machineset les logiciels deviennent connectés, l’identifiant digital uniqueva devenir un élément essentiel des futures transactions et desfuturs services.

LES 30 STARTUPS DU WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM TECHNOLOGYPIONEERS A RENCONTRER A DAVOS

CYBERSECURITE - JOUER DEFENSIFLenouveau”CentreGlobalpourlaCybersécurité”duForumchercheà aider les entreprises et les gouvernements à mieux combattreles intrus digitaux.

REVOLUTIONNER LA PRODUCTION ALIMENTAIREEnAllemagne,uneméga-usineécologiqueproduisantdel’énergie,delanourriture,etdesboissonspourraitservirdemodèleàd’autresdéveloppements.

INTERVIEW D’EMMANUELLE CHARPENTIER, CO-INVENTEURDE CRISPR-CAS9

INNOVATION IMPACTANTEComment les microbiomes, la viande de synthèse, les substitutsde fruits de mer, les protéines d’insectes et le lait sans lactosepourraient nourrir le monde.

LA PECHE A L’INNOVATIONLes startups peuvent devenir une véritable bouée de sauvetagepour les entreprises.

MEDECINE PERSONNALISEEDenouvellesdécouvertes laissententrevoirunesantéplusciblée,plus efficace et moins couteuse.

DU NEUF DANS LA VENTELes enseignes qui intègrent la vente en ligne, la vente physique,la logistique, et la donnée sur une seule et même chaîne devaleur pourraient faire la différence.

REPENSER LA MOBILITE URBAINELa collaboration entre le World Economic Forum et la Villede Boston sert de modèle aux villes qui souhaitent reprendre lecontrôle sur leurs transports.

L’USINE DU FUTURLes Usines ”intelligentes” pourraient rapporter entre 500 et1500 M$ à l’économie mondiale d’ici 5 ans. Le World EconomicForum veut aider les industriels et les gouvernements à saisirl’opportunité.

TRIBUNE : LE LEADERSHIP A L’AGEDE L’INTELLIGENCE ARTIFICIELLEPAR PAUL DAUGHERTY ET H. JIM WILSON D’ACCENTURE

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