Heart of the Machine

Richard Yonck is a futurist, author, and speaker with Intelligent Future Consulting based in Seattle. An award-winning author on developing trends and technologies, he has written features and cover stories for numerous publications and web sites, and is the computing and artificial intelligence contributing editor for the long-running The Futurist magazine. He has been published in Scientific American, World Future Review, Fast Company, Wired, Psychology Today, H+ magazine, American Cinematographer, Mensa Bulletin, and the Seattle Times. He lives in Seattle.Rana el Kaliouby, PhD, is a pioneer in artificial emotional intelligence (Emotion AI), as well as the cofounder and CEO of Affectiva, the acclaimed AI startup spun off from the MIT Media Lab. She grew up in Cairo, Egypt, among a family of educators. After earning an undergraduate and master's degree in computer science at the American University in Cairo, she attended Cambridge University, where she earned her PhD. Afterwards, she joined the MIT Media Lab as a research scientist, where she spearheaded the applications of emotion recognition technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism. She left MIT to cofound Affectiva, the company credited with defining the field of Emotion AI. Her company now works with more than a quarter of the companies in the Fortune Global 500. An acclaimed TED speaker, Rana was named by Forbes to their list of America's Top 50 Women in Tech, and Fortune included her in their list of 40 Under 40. In 2018 she was the cohost of a PBS Nova series on AI.