18,000 new jobs across Europe this year

Alexa plays music, reads the news, knows the latest football results, the best recipes and memorizes the shopping list. And with Alexa's weather forecast, nobody must stand in the rain. In the video, employees of the Amazon Development Center reveal what is behind Amazon's intelligent everyday assistant.

Árdís Elíasdóttir was born in Iceland and earned an Astrophysics PhD in Denmark before joining Amazon in Edinburgh. She now works as a Machine Learning Scientist and is enjoying life in the Scottish capital.

Read the full bios of the keynote speakers and panelists at the next Amazon Academy that discusses 21st-century consumer.

Find out how "Amazon Robotics" helps us deliver products quickly and reliably, in order to meet our ever-growing customer demand and expectation.

Jet Ski champion Franky Zapata invented the Flyboard, a machine that propels people into the air. The idea has attracted amateur board sports enthusiasts as well as a growing number of companies. The young entrepreneur chose to market his Flyboard on Amazon.fr to reach new clients and to diversify his distribution network.

Determined to build a career at Amazon, Lionel is already a team leader after working just two years as a permanent employee at one of Amazon’s five distribution centres in France. Attracted by the company environment, he takes every opportunity to learn and is even preparing to get APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning) certified to continue advancing his career.