Sometimes the best way to innovate inside the classroom is to focus on what happens outside of it. It seems that this year we have had an abundance of snow days. A usually celebrated day might be on its way out. As school moves more to the online sector it becomes easier to teach classes while not at school. This also avoids the make up days at the end of the school year that take away from summer vacations.

There are many positives to eliminating snow days. It allows college level classes to stay on pace. Advanced Placement classes have a set testing day that isn’t adjusted due to snow days. Having an online element where kids can check in and get instruction on days where they would have been at school is very helpful. If you lose a day due to snow it causes major problems in lesson plans. Teachers from Neenah High School, in Wisconsin have experienced 5 snow days this year. They have described the ability to go online and teach as a “life save” because of how it allows them to stay on pace.

At the end of the day some students may be upset that they no longer get a free day off in the middle of the week but with this loss they have the potential to gain in other areas. Test scores and overall understanding of the topic will go up due to being able to learn without condensing lessons.

As AI continues to flourish and grow in today’s expanding society, we see multiple industries trying to incorporate it into their business model. Today we are focusing on the retail industry. Retailers today are struggling to adapt to expanding fulfillment and unlimited selection. In the 2019 Retail C-Suite Viewpoint Survey conducted in collaboration with Microsoft it was found that big businesses view AI as a possible solution to these issues. Artificial Intelligence can create the ability to visualize all current inventory of these retail stores creating a better customer experience and increasing the efficiency of the supply chain. 

Imagine being able to walk into a store and see exactly how much of each item there is in stock and where to find it. This is what AI is promising to give us. A fast easy way to do any sort of shopping that we would desire. Cutting down the amount of time we would have to spend searching the store for one single item.  Expect to be seeing innovations such as these in years to come.

Artificial Intelligence can have a significant impact in the future of education. I’m not suggesting that we cut traditional teaches out of classrooms or even that a robot acts as the primary teacher. I am simply suggesting to integrate different sorts of programs that would improve the classroom efficiency.

The best example of this is in India. A study done by Tracxn, a data firm, suggests that 300 Indian Startups currently provide AI as their main product. Around 11% are based in the education sector. Complete curriculum customization is what India is striding for. Vikas Singh MD shows that this is true when he says, “Though it is still too soon to start seeing robotics in classrooms, AI is already becoming an effective teaching tool because of its ability to adapt and offer customized curricula. AI-enabled tools help assess an individual’s current level of understanding, identify gaps and offer tailored suggestions, just like a teacher would.”

Another way that India is integrating AI into the classrooms is through the app Toppr. Toppr is an app that focuses on keeping student engagement in lessons is higher. They accomplish this through the heavy use of AI focused on providing fully customizable lessons from grades five through twelve. Toppr has shown nearly instant results as well. The average qualification rate of the JEE, an entrance examination conducted for various engineering schools in India, shot up from 22% to 36% and continues to rise. It is an obvious decision to continue to work and improve on AI for the betterment of society. 

There is always room to improve in the medical field. Artificial intelligence is the next big thing in health care in America. At the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2019 it seemed that AI was going to be the focus in the future of healthcare.

One area they focused on was Wearable items and at home surveillance systems. Everybody carries around a cell phone with them and the growth in smart watches has been exponential in the last few years. The healthcare industry sees a way to capitalize on this aspect. This would provide everybody with more convenient and cheaper health care. This provides people with medical advice from wherever they are. Another place that can be approved is the data collection and care patients receive when they leave the hospital. This is another place that experts expect advancements to happen in healthcare. New surveillance systems can help develop greater connections with patients and develop safer habits.

It is no question that in the next few years we will be advancing in the medical field. The question is how fast and what exactly it will cost. Will general healthcare costs rise to help provide funding for these? Will we have to sacrifice some of our privacy to make sure that we are safe and get better health care? Only time can answer these questions.