The annual Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is designed to con­vene inno­va­tors, decision-makers, researchers and all pro­fes­sion­als in the brain health and cog­ni­tive fit­ness field who want to

1. learn about the lat­est mar­ket trends, tech­nolo­gies, needs and opportunities,
2. dis­cuss emerg­ing research and best practices,
3. meet and share notes with col­leagues who face sim­i­lar pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges, and
4. inter­act with a cross-sector group of indus­try, tech­nol­ogy and research inno­va­tors who are chang­ing the way things are done.

Con­firmed Sum­mit Speakers

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To Learn More About Sum­mit Fac­ulty & Agenda, click HERE

What last year atten­dees said

In Jan­u­ary 2010 Sharp­Brains suc­cess­fully orga­nized the inau­gural vir­tual, global Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, which fea­tured a dream team of over 40 speak­ers and gath­ered over 250 par­tic­i­pants in 16 coun­tries.

This is what par­tic­i­pants said when sur­veyed right after the Sum­mit:

• “Splen­did line-up of speak­ers.” — Jake Duna­gan, Research Direc­tor at the Insti­tute For The Future, USA.
• “Uni­ver­sal kudos from our team. Agenda worked out extra­or­di­nar­ily well.” — Ken Kosik, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of CFIT, USA.
• “One of the best con­fer­ences I have ever attended in 4 decades of research & inno­va­tion life.” — Ron Baecker, Lab Direc­tor at Uni­ver­sity of Toronto, Canada.
• “Excel­lent con­tent and out­stand­ing admin­is­tra­tion.” — Danny Dankner, CEO Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing, Israel.
• “An incred­i­bly stim­u­lat­ing con­fer­ence, with a per­fect bal­ance of sci­ence and appli­ca­tion.” — David Tal, Owner, A.G.E. Mat­ters Clinic, Canada.
• 92% rated their over­all expe­ri­ence as “Very High” or “High”

FAQs

What: The 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, to be con­ducted vir­tu­ally, will high­light emerg­ing research, tools and best prac­tices to mea­sure and enhance brain health and per­for­mance across the lifespan.

When: Wednes­day, March 30th — Fri­day, April 1st. Ses­sions will take place 8am — 5pm US Pacific Time; 11am — 8pm US East­ern Time.

Who should attend: pio­neers in tech­nol­ogy, behavioral/ occupational/ men­tal health, research and devel­op­ment, gam­ing, life/ health/ auto insur­ance, human resources, dig­i­tal health­care, senior ser­vices, cog­ni­tive and affec­tive neuroscience.

CEUs:  We will pro­vide, at no addi­tional charge, a CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE equiv­a­lent to 20 hours of Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion Units. Please note that we have not pur­sued exter­nal accreditation.

How: using online tools for webi­nars, dis­cus­sions, net­work­ing. We want to repli­cate the “con­fer­ence expe­ri­ence” as much as pos­si­ble with­out hav­ing peo­ple travel from all over the place to one city and hotel.

Where and Why: the Sum­mit will take place online glob­ally (this is, instead of you trav­el­ing to the Sum­mit, the Sum­mit will travel to you)…

• to Help you Save Time and Money: we pre­fer nei­ther to ask you to spend over $1,000 in flights, accom­mo­da­tion, taxis, food…, nor to waste time in secu­rity lines,
• to ensure best Speak­ers and timely con­tent: the Sum­mit needs to hap­pen soon to help address grow­ing inter­est and con­fu­sion sur­round­ing “brain fit­ness”, “brain train­ing”, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive health in general,
• to con­vene a Global Com­mu­nity: we expect to have speak­ers based in over 5 coun­tries, and par­tic­i­pants in over 15,
• and because we already proved in 2010 that a vir­tual con­fer­ence can pro­vide such a valu­able expe­ri­ence as a phys­i­cal one.

What is a “vir­tual con­fer­ence”? The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is just like a phys­i­cal con­fer­ence — we will gather in a forum to dis­cuss lat­est infor­ma­tion, con­nect with each other, dis­cover oppor­tu­ni­ties and part­ner­ships. How­ever, rather than trav­el­ing to a con­fer­ence, the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit trav­els to you. Thanks to a participant-only web­site, you will access each pre­sen­ta­tion either by join­ing the live web­cast or by down­load­ing a record­ing after the pre­sen­ta­tion, and you will be able to dis­cuss with speak­ers and your peers, before, dur­ing, and after, the con­fer­ence. You only need to have a com­puter, an Inter­net con­nec­tion, and head­sets (to lis­ten to the audio part from your com­puter). These are 20 rea­sons why vir­tual con­fer­ences are the future.

What will hap­pen and when?

1. Before the Sum­mit: once you reg­is­ter, you will receive the com­pre­hen­sive and pro­pri­etary mar­ket report Trans­form­ing Brain Health with Dig­i­tal Tools to Assess, Enhance and Repair Cog­ni­tion across the Lifes­pan — The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket, and an invi­ta­tion to join Sharp­Brains’ LinkedIn Group so that you can start talk­ing and con­nect­ing with other participants.
2. Dur­ing the Sum­mit: you will be able to access all live ses­sions through your com­puter, lis­ten to and ask ques­tions to speak­ers, chat with other par­tic­i­pants, see demos of lat­est prod­ucts and technologies.
3. After the Sum­mit: you will be able to access record­ings and hand­outs for all the ses­sions, to con­tinue talk­ing and con­nect­ing with other par­tic­i­pants through the end of 2011, and to meet in per­son with other Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants in your region. We are already plan­ning social gath­er­ings in April/ May in San Fran­cisco, Los Ange­les, New York, Wash­ing­ton DC and Toronto.

Do I need to install some spe­cial soft­ware to attend the con­fer­ence? No. We will be using Adobe Con­nect, which doesn’t require any plug-in. The only require­ments are 1) hav­ing an office-quality Inter­net con­nec­tion (not dial-up), 2) hav­ing Adobe Flash Player (over 99% Internet-enabled com­put­ers have it by default; it can be down­loaded for free). If you can watch the video at the top of this page, you are fully set.

When will the pre­sen­ta­tion record­ings be avail­able on the con­fer­ence web­site, and for how long? All pre­sen­ta­tion record­ings will become avail­able on April 7th, 2010, and remain on the web­site for 3 months fol­low­ing the con­fer­ence. Access will be pro­vided only for reg­is­tered participants.

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About Sharp­Brains: Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm and inno­va­tion net­work devoted to help­ing orga­ni­za­tions, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers nav­i­gate the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health field. In 2010, the firm released its flag­ship report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010, for decision-makers, and the con­sumer guide The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, for every­one with a brain. Sharp­Brains mis­sion is to pro­vide inde­pen­dent, research-based, infor­ma­tion and guid­ance to nav­i­gate the grow­ing cog­ni­tive and brain fit­ness market.