We will always need talented engineers and scientists. But our future rests on how successful we are in getting technology and humans to interact in ways that benefit our planet and everyone who lives on it.

In the next 10 years, we believe that computers will move beyond their current role as our assistants, and become our advisors. With their help, we'll grapple with and solve some of the toughest issues facing the world today.

The Big Data argument speaks quite clearly for itself: the better a brand knows its customers, its interaction with those customers becomes more meaningful, ultimately increasing the likelihood that the customer takes some sort of action.

It is true that the tactics for managing and analyzing Big Data are changing and improving, but the strategies for working with Big Data, as well as small data, are still based on a rock-solid foundation of good statistical thinking.