For my entire career, I have worked to bring electronic inventions to healthcare markets where there is a critical and urgent need.

The old university attitude of 'publish or perish' has changed. Students and academics are realising that institutions such as Imperial College are also wealth-generators. It is very satisfying to be in a university where you have the freedom to innovate and yet know that there is a path to translate your work into industry.

For me, the ability to use semiconductor sequencing to provide a medical diagnosis in just a few hours that once took days is a crucial step in saving the lives of patients. This is particularly significant for the treatment of sepsis, where every minute matters.

When patients are admitted to hospital for elective surgery or non-urgent conditions, their vital signs are only monitored every four hours, unless they have been identified as being at high risk of deterioration.

Samasource's largest clients are technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Getty Images, and TripAdvisor, which contract with my company rather than a traditional outsourcing company in order to participate in 'impact sourcing' - conscious efforts to reduce poverty by moving money into places that need it.

If technology and communications can adapt to people's modern lifestyles, then why can't our labor laws follow suit? Private-sector businesses continue to live under an outdated federal mandate that says the only way to compensate for overtime is through cash wages.

Technology has eliminated the basement darkroom and the whole notion of photography as an intense labor of love for obsessives and replaced them with a sense of immediacy and instant gratification.

Everyone has a really short attention span nowadays with social media, our phones. Even me - I can't go without touching my phone every five minutes.