| In Uganda, Shamim Nabuuma Kaliisa is using drones and artificial intelligence to screen women in remote villages for cervical and breast cancer. Nabuuma Kaliisa's mission is rooted in personal tragedy: her own mother died of cancer that hadn't been diagnosed early enough, and she herself is a breast cancer survivor. Kaliisa is one of 31 extraordinary individuals selected by the Bloomberg New Economy to be part of an inaugural group of "Catalysts."
Among them are scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Some, like Nabuuma Kaliisa, operate small startups. Others, like Anthony Tan, co-founder of Singapore-based Grab, run businesses worth billions of dollars. A common thread is that they are all addressing the greatest challenges of our time—among them climate change, food security and inequality, including chronic health disparities.  Anthony Tan This Week in the New Economy
To do so, these Catalysts are leveraging the power of emerging technologies that are producing a stream of breakthrough applications. Chilean entrepreneur Matias Muchnick deploys artificial intelligence to analyze plants at a molecular level. His goal is to produce plant-based versions of foods that people love to eat. "We have no idea if the combination of pineapple and cabbage can recreate the flavor of milk," Muchnick said. "For a human being that might sound super-crazy, but for an algorithm it isn't."
At the Bloomberg New Economy, we're optimistic about the planet's future, even while we mourn the millions lost to a pandemic that's still raging. Indeed, the coronavirus catastrophe has triggered what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." Witness, for example, the delivery of multiple vaccines in record time and a revolutionary new technology that holds promise for treating other intractable afflictions, like cancer, HIV and even influenza. As one of our Catalysts, venture-capitalist Noubar Afeyan, co-founder of the biotechnology company Moderna, commented to us: "I think we'll be able to say more, know more, and do more about human physiology in the next year than we've been able to think about in the next 40." It's worth noting too that during this pandemic, two missions have landed on Mars–one Chinese, one American–while a third from the United Arab Emirates has orbited the red planet, reminding the world that journeys into space offer hope for solutions to many problems back home.
"It's created a ripple effect," said one of our government Catalysts, Sarah Al Amiri, the UAE minister of state for advanced technology. Her country is preparing for life after oil by investing in a space program that has a whole generation of kids interested in science, technology and math.  Sarah Al Amiri An up-and-coming space business, said Al Amiri, has the effect of "making what was big smaller, and what was specialized and very bespoke more accessible." There's no better example of that transformative trend than Sara Spangelo, another of our Catalysts, whose U.S. tech startup Swarm is establishing a globe-spanning network of satellites. When fully up-and-running, it will offer connectivity to every point on Earth–at just a fraction of today's cost. At the Bloomberg New Economy, we set out to capture–and celebrate–that kind of entrepreneurial energy and vision, particularly in the developing world. When the coronavirus began spreading in Africa, software engineers came up with AI-powered healthcare chatbots and robot virus-testing. Meanwhile, 3D printing communities around the world mass-produced protective face shields. Collectively, our remarkable Catalysts inspire new ideas, fresh thinking and novel approaches to old quandaries. But most importantly, they incite action.
Megan McArthur is piloting NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station; Henrietta Moon created a carbon removal system that may sequester CO2 for 1,000 years; Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr is planting 1 million trees in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to build climate resilience; and Justin Gong is leveraging agri-tech to transform farming in China.  Megan McArthur The planet is fragile, and humanity has pushed it to the brink with a rapacious disregard for the future. Yet, there are counter-forces at work. This global health crisis has showcased technologies decades in the making which are capable of transforming life itself. In the hands of catalysts, these new tools are ready to help rescue an imperiled world. Amid the suffering that continues all across the globe, there remains hope: Humankind has just entered a new era of discovery. Join us next week for our Catalyst program that will spotlight the individuals at the forefront of this exploration.
The fourth annual Bloomberg New Economy Forum will convene the world's most influential leaders in Singapore on Nov. 16-19 to mobilize behind the effort to build a sustainable and inclusive global economy. Learn more here. __________________________________________________________ Watch the future unfold on June 30. Register here for Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst, a global, 6-hour virtual event celebrating the innovators, scientists, policymakers and entrepreneurs accelerating solutions to today's biggest problems. We will explore what matters, what's next and the what-ifs of climate change, agriculture, biotech, digital money, e-commerce and space through the imaginations and stories of these ascendant leaders. Download the Bloomberg app: It's available for iOS and Android. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more. | 
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