Game on, Las Vegas

LAS Vegas is one fascinating city. Before the bright lights, showy casinos and avant-garde hotels, it was a town that lived through murderous gang wars and the catastrophic Prohibition era. It's also earned the title of America's capital of resilience, having bounced back from a recession or two, the country's worst foreclosure crisis, and the 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people on the Strip.

Today, it is a vibrant metropolis in the state of Nevada, whose casinos collectively yielded a record US$26.2 billion in gambling revenue last year. There is also a new camaraderie around the Las Vegas community, thanks to a recent history-making performance by its professional ice hockey team, the Vegas Golden Knights.

On a road trip around the city last week, I stumbled (soberly!) upon several technologies that wowed and surprised me - and I'm not even talking about the world's first hyperloop test track by transport tech startup Virgin Hyperloop One, or the cool inflatable space habitats by space tech company Bigelow Aerospace, which are both located in the desert north of Las Vegas! So yes, Vegas is a tech haven as well.