A 19-year old student, Boyan Slat, recently invented a device that will clean up ocean garbage, primarily plastic, that threatens all forms of ocean life. Now 21, he is about to see the first prototype go to work, having been mentored by a startup accelerator. Three students in Africa recently demonstrated a process by which urine can create electricity.
2017 promises to be a year of continued innovation, and in the tech arena especially, new startups hold a lot of promise for business, governments, and overall human well-being. Here are 5 top startup trends to watch out for in 2017.
#1 AI and Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence has been a theme of science fiction for years. And now it is our reality – machines that can analyze behavior patterns and make predictions based on those patterns.
A very simple form of this occurs when Amazon recommends additional products to its shoppers. It has a lot of data that a machine has analyzed, telling it that, customers who bought product “A” also bought other specific products. And so, it promotes those products to anyone purchasing product “A.”
AI has gone far beyond the traditional algorithms for shopping on Amazon, however. Advanced technologies now enable machines to analyze big data, to discover patterns, to predict future behaviors, and to actually learn from all of these activities, producing new patterns.
