Thousands are drawn to virtual reality and global tech giants are starting to get on board.

Geoffrey Hinton, who just received the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communications Technologies, teaches machines to think like people. His work at University of Toronto and then Google, has been instrumental in the development of a number of applications, including automatic translation system, personal assistants like Siri, driverless systems or medical diagnosis.

Ethics has always been a key debate topic within the financial system. And it still is in the current era of digital disruption that has engulfed a sector that is pivotal for the economy. But, can the banking industry stay up to date with the new frantic pace of innovation and still operate following a series of ethical principles?

In José Manuel González-Páramo’s opinion, in the context of change unleashed by new technologies, the financial sector needs to keep ethics at the core of its banking activity. According to BBVA’s executive director, in the new digital era, banks need start considering confidence as a top priority, and data privacy and cybersecurity as the two pillars on which this confidence is built.

Blockchain is paving the way for new ways of business for independent journalists. This is just the beginning of a revolution based on many of the principles of the sharing economy.

BBVA is the only financial institution attending the G20 conference being held this Wednesday in Wiesbaden (Germany).  Executive Director José Manuel González-Páramo participated in a conference on the opportunities and risks associated with the digital transformation, together with the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann; German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble; Governor of the Central Bank of Mexico, Agustín Carstens; and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.

People interact with computers and electronic devices as a matter of course, but perceptual intelligence wants to go beyond that. The aim is for machines to perceive what human beings do around them, helping people make decisions or anticipating their needs.

The Group celebrated the second edition of BBVA Brainstorm, an in-company event created to provide all bank employees with a first-hand update on how of the bank’s most strategic projects are progressing and what kind of work is being conducted.

They come together as one, sometimes clamorous, other times contemplative. They move in tandem, continuously tuning. One peels off, goes her own way, then returns with a new sound, a new idea.

The UN held its first World Data Forum in Cape Town to explore how data analysis and statistics can be used to help attain the Sustainable Development Goals. BBVA Data & Analytics participated in the forum, where it presented several data initiatives for the common good.

Geoffrey Hinton’s work at University of Toronto is focused on a branch of artificial intelligence called deep learning. His goal is to develop a new breed of computers capable of learning in the same way as the human brain. At Google, where he has also been working for a number of years now, he has been instrumental in the development of a number of applications, including automatic translation system, driverless systems or tumor malignancy classification.