James Cook was born in the Yorkshire town of East Marton in 1728. Although his father was a farm laborer who hadn’t traveled far from his native Scotland, James’s life took a radically different path. When Cook was eight years old, he attended a local charity school where he got a good foundation in mathematics. By the time he was 17, Cook was on his own and began an apprenticeship at a coal shipping company transporting coal by sea between Newcastle and London in a four-week round trip.

The “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is well underway. Back in 2011, economist Klaus Schwab coined the term to refer to the rapid digitization and accessibility of technologies that spark a global shift in processes – in everything from how we communicate to how businesses and governments are managed.