What Participants Said about the 2012 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

The two charts to the right, based on an online sur­vey right after the Sum­mit was com­plet­ed, high­light the high lev­els of sat­is­fac­tion with the Sum­mit over­all — espe­cial­ly with the Qual­i­ty of Con­tent (all Sum­mit Record­ings are avail­able Here). This is what a num­ber of speak­ers and par­tic­i­pants said:

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is a rare vehi­cle for get­ting mul­ti­ple expert per­spec­tives on cur­rent devel­op­ments in improv­ing brain func­tion in a con­cise and clear way. The Sum­mit is a valu­able resource for both experts and non-experts.”  — Dr. Michael Pos­ner, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, Uni­ver­sity of Oregon

“The 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit was fan­tas­tic- it is clear that we are mov­ing into a new phase in study­ing human per­for­mance using big data. Our bod­ies are out­liv­ing our brains- what we need most now is evi­dence-dri­ven design to devel­op appli­ca­tions to help our brains remain as strong as our bod­ies! Fan­tas­tic con­fer­ence, can’t wait for next year!” — Sheryl Fly­nn PT, PhD, CEO, Blue Mar­ble Games

“An impres­sive vir­tu­al con­vo­ca­tion of lead­ing sci­en­tists and devel­op­ers and adopters of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment tech­nol­o­gy; it would be hard to match in a sin­gle phys­i­cal space.” — Dr. Robert Bilder, Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­o­gy-Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy, UCLA Semel Insti­tute for Neuroscience

“This was a sem­i­nal event, full of won­der­ful insights and remark­able ini­tia­tives, at a time when the brain is going main­stream.”- Dr. Evian Gor­don, Exec­u­tive Chair­man, Brain Resource

“The annu­al Sharp­Brains Vrtu­al Sum­mit is a con­ve­nient and sur­pris­ing­ly com­pelling forum for catch­ing up on applied cog­ni­tive research from lead­ers in the field and for help­ing shape future brain health care.” — Dr. Yaakov Stern, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion Leader, Colum­bia University

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is unique in its impres­sive abil­i­ty to unite a diverse col­lec­tion of cut­ting-edge thinkers in a “vir­tu­al” con­fer­ence that is shared glob­al­ly with­out a hitch. I am delight­ed and hon­ored to have been able to par­tic­i­pate in this Sum­mit since its incep­tion.” — Dr. Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of the Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter at UCSF

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit pro­vides com­mon ground for prac­ti­tion­ers, sci­en­tists and indus­try lead­ers to work towards the com­mon goal of dri­ving brain health and fit­ness for­ward with a thought­ful, ana­lyt­i­cal and prac­ti­cal approach.   The vir­tu­al rela­tion­ships you can form through this con­fer­ence are price­less.” — Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Nation­al Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center

“The 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit proved to be a high­ly reward­ing, enjoy­able and extreme­ly use­ful expe­ri­ence. The hands-on infor­ma­tion-rich work­shops are help­ing take our cur­rent efforts to the next lev­el” — Josep M Tor­mos, Research Coor­di­na­tor, Insti­tut Guttmann

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit brings togeth­er lead­ers in all rel­e­vant cog­ni­tive fields from busi­ness to aca­d­e­mic com­mu­ni­ties, as well as pro­vid­ing a forum to address the evo­lu­tion of this emerg­ing indus­try. Because cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, fit­ness, and enter­tain­ment are rel­a­tively nascent indus­tries, it has been dif­fi­cult to use tra­di­tional bench­marks to eval­u­ate its suc­cess and growth. Sharp­Brains is quick­ly becom­ing the “go to” resource for inno­va­tion and busi­ness insight. Alvaro and his team delve into a vari­ety of top­ics — both on macro and niche lev­els, mak­ing the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit the per­fect forum for dis­cov­ery and idea exchange “- Stan­ley Yang, CEO, NeuroSky

“I can­not rec­om­mend the Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit high­ly enough. It’s a fan­tas­tic forum for knowl­edge shar­ing in the com­plex area of brain health pro­vid­ing access and dis­cus­sion with world lead­ers in the field. I found the vir­tual for­mat actu­ally enhanced the learn­ing expe­ri­ence and the short ses­sions focused the con­tent in an engag­ing way which is often lack­ing in oth­er tra­di­tional con­fer­ence set­tings” — David Coleiro, Part­ner, Strate­gic North

“Great exam­ple of how bring­ing sci­en­tif­ic lead­ers and inno­va­tors togeth­er can spur thought­ful dis­cus­sion about our most vital organ – the brain. Brain sci­ence is a rapid­ly chang­ing field with expan­sion and devel­op­ments hap­pen­ing in small pock­ets around the world. The vir­tu­al sum­mit facil­i­tates the esca­la­tion of pub­lic atten­tion on brain health and informs trans­la­tion of sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery into imple­men­ta­tion.” — Dr. San­dra Bond Chap­man, Direc­tor, Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Dallas

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is a great gath­er­ing place for the ‘inside edi­tion’ of what is hap­pen­ing at the neuroscience/consumer inter­face.”  — Joan Par­sons, CEO, start-up

“A very time-effi­cient man­ner to get a state of the art update on the lat­est inno­va­tions in assess­ing and pro­mot­ing brain health, and from the com­fort of your own office.” — Dr. Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Bracket/ Unit­ed BioSource Corporation

“Com­ing from far-off New Zealand, the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit was enlight­en­ing, excit­ing, inter­ac­tive, acces­si­ble, and left me feel­ing much less iso­la­tion in my mem­o­ry clin­ic work here. I am already dis­cussing with sev­er­al par­tic­i­pants how to bring this knowl­edge to our respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties.” — Dr. Alli­son Lam­ont, Direc­tor, Christchurch Mem­o­ry Clinic

“The in-depth work­shops worked extreme­ly well. They were meati­er and applied direct­ly to the work we are doing. We were encour­aged to see the vari­ety of ways in which emerg­ing knowl­edge is being put into prac­tice.” — Anony­mous

“The sum­mit is a great place to learn about the lat­est devel­op­ments in tech­nol­o­gy for cog­ni­tive and brain health and well­ness. Plus the water cool­er chats are a very effi­cient way to con­nect with oth­er peo­ple in the field lead­ing to some very impor­tant local, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties.” — Sher­rie All, PhD, Math­er LifeWays

“The Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit is the sin­gle glob­al point of con­tact for cog­ni­tive health inno­va­tors, high­light­ing the state-of-the-art themes in tech­nol­o­gy, research and con­sumer demand.” — Jaan Tul­viste, CEO, Cognuse

“Great com­bi­na­tion of emerg­ing research with real life case stud­ies. It puts us sev­er­al years ahead of what appears in more pop­u­lar pub­li­ca­tion sources and con­fer­ences.” — Steve Zanon, Founder, Proac­tive Ageing

“There is per­haps no bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand one’s mind on how to address brain-based chal­lenges that impact our com­mu­ni­ties than to attend a Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.” — Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor, Case West­ern Reserve University

“A vir­tu­al for­mat is the best way to go …no trav­el no wor­ry and no hur­ry.  The Sharp­Brains team has done anoth­er fan­tas­tic job, pro­duc­ing the best brain con­fer­ence avail­able today.” — Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, MD, Pres­i­dent, Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foundation

“The 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit was a high­ly effi­cient way to get a sense of where the com­plex and sprawl­ing field of brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive enhance­ment stands, and where it is head­ing.” — Jonas Jen­di, VP and GM, Cogmed/ Pear­son Clin­i­cal Assessments

“This sum­mit is a MUST for all those work­ing in the cognitive/brain health field — lat­est research and cur­rent appli­ca­tions make this con­fer­ence HIGHLY rel­e­vant! Amaz­ing speak­ers, and with­out any time spent on trav­el.” — Pat­ty Gould, Cen­ter Direc­tor, LearningRx

“The vir­tu­al for­mat pro­vides unpar­al­leled access to knowl­edge pre­sent­ed by a diverse cadre of pro­fes­sion­als across the filed of brain health and fit­ness. It enhanced my abil­i­ty to think deeply about both chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties to enhance brain health and over­all well­ness across the lifes­pan.”  — Eri­ca Boisvert, The Synapse Connection

“The Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit was a amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with and learn from oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to help bridge the gap between the emerg­ing sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and how in prac­tice we devel­op young brains and minds” — San­dra Heusel, Eaton Arrow­smith School

“Imag­ine you are sit­ting at the Acad­e­my in ancient Athens. Socrates looks strait at you and says, “The unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing”. That is pre­cise­ly what hap­pened to me when I attend­ed the 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit. Well, Socrates did not address the Sum­mit. It was Dr. Michael Pos­ner, talk­ing to me about med­i­ta­tion and enhanc­ing the neur­al mech­a­nisms under­ly­ing atten­tion. It was Dr. Robert Bilder telling me about Crowd­sourc­ing Big Brain Data and the 90% Solu­tion. It was Kate Sul­li­van, shar­ing with me her expe­ri­ences on cog­ni­tive retrain­ing and reha­bil­i­ta­tion of mil­i­tary per­son­nel. These men and women and dozens of more speak­ers sub­stan­ti­at­ed what Socrates said. Let’s exam­ine what we can do to enhance liv­ing.” —  Anony­mous