Last month, Sophia, a humanoid robot, was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship. This is a first for robots, and begs the question: should robots have equal rights to human beings?

The American multinational company Qualcomm just claimed the first 5G mobile net connection. Although experts only predict 5G to become widely available in a couple of years, it is guaranteed to give us faster speeds and to become the driving technology behind the Internet of Things.

Discussions about financial support mechanisms for the losers of globalisation and the economic crises, about the joint handling of the refugee issue, joint police efforts – in other words, about solidarity in general in Europe – show that further European integration is challenged.

Dry heat and drought in one season and flooding rains in another is part and parcel of our global food futures to 2050. Also on the radar is a tidal wave of change caused by global warming, population growth, digital futures and deep systemic issues in food futures to 2050 and beyond. These issues are influencing food security, scarcity and trends like biotechnology and precision agriculture in the food industry.

Flying cars are no longer a distant dream. The race of bringing new vehicles up to the skies is on and over 10 companies are expecting to launch flying cars by 2022. The sky's the limit for flying cars, but are we ready for the evolution of air civil transportation?

To ensure that opportunities are not overlooked and risks are identified it is essential to challenge our assumptions and beliefs regularly. It has become even more imperative as the economic, technological, political, environmental, and social landscapes, among others, around us continue to morph and change rapidly.

It is hard to dispute that the future of energy is renewable. But this share is expected to increase significantly in the decades to come, powered by new technologies, demand, and concerns over the current sources. What countries are leading this change?

Intelligence amplification (IA) refers to an attempt to enhance human capabilities with intelligent technologies. This type of concept gives a new point of view to the more common description of artificial intelligence (AI), which pursuits a full-scope replication of human intelligence for the computer or robot to be fully atomised.

Clean water and food shortages are two of the world’s pressing problems which require urgent solutions as the population grows and the climate change evolves. As unbelievable as it may sound, new technologies could help us to answer this challenge by harvesting water and food out of thin air.

Elon Musk has published a paper entitled "Making Humans a Multi-planetary Species," where he argues for the necessity of colonizing Mars and how we could possibly get there. There are several companies pushing for a "space economy," which could spark new industries and, if successful, open up hundreds of billions of dollars into the "multi-world economy”.

In the Greek tale of 'the lion and the man', Androcles removes a thorn from a lion's foot. Years later, the lion repays the favour when facing Androcles in the Roman Colosseum. Afterwards, people would say "This is the lion, a man's friend; This metaphor is of how a man and a lion benefitted by helping each other, but what lessons are there for small rural regions to learn from large cities?

The majority of scientists, according to NASA, believe that humans are responsible for the rise of climate temperature. The main culprit, it is argued, is carbon dioxide, better known as CO2, and its increasing levels in the atmosphere, now at their highest in over half a million years. Could we make better use of this CO2?