At Singularity University, BD confronts some of humanity’s greatest healthcare challenges.

Moore’s law, an observation in a 1965 paper by Intel™ co-founder Gordon Moore, suggests that the performance of semiconductors, the basic components of technology, will double every year while their cost halves. To this day, his prediction has proven to be accurate, and is expected to lead to a fundamental change in the relationship between organic and artificial intelligence (AI), often referred to as “The Singularity.”

For the past year, BD has partnered with Singularity University as a member of its SU Labs Corporate Program. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Singularity University is a benefit corporation that provides educational programs and innovative partnerships to help participants understand exponential technologies, thus converting science fiction to science reality.

Coordinated by its Corporate Technology and Innovation Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, BD has worked with SU Labs’ innovation community to establish teams to help build sustainable healthcare solutions. The first innovation project teams emerging from this partnership are invested in addressing significant healthcare challenges, by employing technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, virtual reality, robotics and big data.

Rebecca Heinrich, BD Entrepreneur in Residence and Al Lauritano, Director of Strategic Technology Partnership lead the effort. Rebecca stated, “The goal of BD’s work with Singularity University is to use this platform to launch new business opportunities and internal startups that will benefit from emerging technologies that SU has an expertise in.” Al offers his view on working with the team at Singularity. “BD knows a lot about grand challenges in healthcare and exponential technologies are going to be how we can best solve them globally.”

One of the participants sponsored by BD was Jocelyn Wang, an MD/MBA candidate from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who spent her summer internship working with the BD team based at SU. “The people I’ve met and worked with this summer are daring. They’ve created novel ways of thinking and dedicated so much into their work. It has been humbling and inspiring to meet these brilliant minds and hear their thought processes.”

Today, Gordon Moore still has a hand in the company he co-founded, and his pragmatism inspires the BD team to seek practical applications for the cutting edge technologies at SU.