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2020 in review

Our best illustrations of 2020

Our artists’ thought-provoking, playful creations bring our stories to life, often saying more with an image than words ever could.
December 31, 2020

From the MIT Technology Review art team, here are some of our very favorite illustrations of the year:

conceptual illustration of 3 women's silhouetted faces
Is getting pregnant “medically necessary” right now?
INA JANG
Zooming
DOGBOY
10 Breakthrough Technologies: Hyper-personalized medicine
JULIA DUFOSSé
Your biggest questions about coronavirus, answered
PAIGE VICKERS
tech legislation illo
What the 1930s can teach us about dealing with Big Tech today
SOPHY HOLLINGTON
Algostory 1.7: “Krishna and Arjuna”
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAX LOEFFLER
race for a cure
The race to find a covid-19 drug in the blood of survivors
SELMAN DESIGN
This is what it will take to get us back outside
ROB SHERIDAN
How Germany tamed covid-19
PATRICK LEGER
The long, complicated history of “people analytics”
ANDREA D'AQUINO
sharing misinformation
How the truth was murdered
NAJEEBAH AL-GHADBAN
10 Breakthrough Technologies: Unhackable internet
YOSHI SODEOKA
conceptual illustration
What AI still can’t do
SAIMAN CHOW
Conceptual illustration of a student sitting in a window that shows large ethernet cords plugged in around her
The children being left behind by America’s online schooling
CATHRYN VIRGINIA
conceptual illustration showing 5 figures in a dark empty landscape
Many covid-19 survivors will be left traumatized by their ICU experience
JIALUN DENG
bicycles
Why you don’t really know what you know
We put our team of writers to the test when we asked them to draw a bicycle from memory in 5 minutes. We ended up with such a great group of bikes that we decided to use them for story art.
Why venture capital doesn’t build the things we really need
NICO ORTEGA
A rhinocorn -- a cross between a rhino and unicorn.
A radical new technique lets AI learn with practically no data
MS TECH / PIXABAY
pig genes operation game
Gene editing has made pigs immune to a deadly epidemi
SELMAN DESIGN
conceptual illustration
“Am I going crazy or am I being stalked?” Inside the disturbing online world of gangstalking
CHRISSIE ABBOTT
conceptual illustration showing a police hat with overlapped nueral network that's being dismantled.
Predictive policing algorithms are racist. They need to be dismantled.
FRANZISKA BARCZYK

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