Yolanda González Menéndez

Anthropological theories about the transformation of our species have multiplied since Darwin first began positing new ideas about the origin of mankind with his theory of evolution. To become the 'Homo sapiens' of today, human beings have had to undergo a process of change that has occurred over millions of years and has resulted in physical, cultural, and linguistic variations.

There is no greater witness to history than art. Present in all eras and cultures, artisticcreations have come down to our day filled with esthetic and documentary value. For that reason, the work at the BBVA Collection has very little to do with finance. It consists of caring for art, in order to preserve our history.

Fair-trade coffee, quality guarantee, ecological tomatoes… consumers read the labels on the things they eat. But is there any way of checking that what they say is correct? In order to do so, you would need a register of the processes to which the product has been submitted, something blockchain can do.

The Italian director Ettore Scola once said that movies are a painted mirror. Dramas, comedies and adventures of all kinds have been presented on the big screen for decades. But the imagination of film directors when creating science fiction has taken them even further, to a once-distant future that we’ve finally reached. Many screenplays were written about the present we now live in, but how accurate were their predictions?

Sex, religion, and politics, along with harmony and trust, gave birth to money. At first, there was barter. Later came coins and bills, which have now given way to the network age, a world in which space and time have disappeared and transactions are conducted in bits. In order to understand the present and predict the future, Chris Skinner reflects on the history of money in his book, 'The Next Step: Exponential Life', which can be downloaded online free of charge as part of BBVA’s OpenMind project.

Agriculture stands at the threshold of a new revolution. The rising population, the competition for increasingly scarce resources and the phenomenon of climate change are just some of the challenges facing the sector as it seeks to feed all of humanity. We need to produce more with less, a challenge that the farm sector has already begun to answer, thanks to the Internet of Things, whose sensors have brought the benefits of big data to the farmsteads and croplands.

Athletes' sporting achievements boost their social media profiles. The more relevant their victories, the more their followings grow. This is exactly what happened to Garbiñe Muguruza right after conquering her first Wimbledon Grand Slam; she’s become the most popular top-five tennis player on Instagram.