Robots and advanced manufacturing will affect everything, from the workplace to global supply chains to healthcare to infrastructure. In hospitals and medical research labs, Artificial intelligence (AI) combined with genomics has given us the power to better understand the human genome, make faster diagnoses, and even edit our genes to eradicate inherited diseases. On highways and city roads, advances in AI mean that self-driving cars and trucks loom on the horizon.

We have already witnessed advanced computer hardware and software defeating the world’s best at games such as chess, Go, and poker. Undoubtedly, many other professions and areas in the years ahead will feel the same competition. Meanwhile, the promises of the digital future are challenged by the need to achieve cybersecurity, as well as to address ethical questions around responsible research and innovation.

Dean Kamen has been innovating for five decades and holds 440 patents that have led to a host of products including the Segway, a home use dialysis system, the first portable insulin pump, and an advanced prosthetic arm for DARPA. Looking to the need for future innovators, he created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a program to encourage young people to be science and technology leaders, especially in the field of robotics.