cognitive-simulation

“We need low-cost monitoring technologies to track cognitive processes and capabilities at an individual level” — Danny Dankner, CEO and co-founder of Applied Cognitive Engineering

by

Dan­ny Dankner

Ques­tion: Dan­ny, please share 1–2 major brain health needs you observe right now whose solu­tion demands a cre­ative and sig­nif­i­cant tech-enabled innovation.

Answer: We need low-cost mon­i­tor­ing tech­nolo­gies to track cog­ni­tive process­es and capa­bil­i­ties at an indi­vid­ual lev­el. This would be crit­i­cal to trace and diag­nose dete­ri­o­rat­ing process­es, espe­cial­ly among the “wor­ried well” and old­er adults.

What advice would you give an entre­pre­neur launch­ing an inno­va­tion to address that?

The same advice I’d give any entre­pre­neur: make sure you address a real need, be focused, short­en devel­op­ment cycles and work as close as pos­si­ble to prospec­tive cus­tomers. Of course you also need to assem­ble a group of capa­ble and con­nect­ed peo­ple which you are com­fort­able work­ing with.

Final­ly, please share some­thing excit­ing you’re work­ing on.

We have been devel­op­ing cog­ni­tive sim­u­la­tion sys­tems to train and improve on-field deci­sion-mak­ing per­for­mance  among com­pet­i­tive foot­ball (“soc­cer” in the US) play­ers, and it’s excit­ing to start to see tan­gi­ble results. For exam­ple, the Cologne Sport Uni­ver­si­ty just released this fas­ci­nat­ing study about the effi­ca­cy of the Foot­ball Intel­li­Gym, led by Prof. Daniel Memmert–the head of the sports cog­ni­tion depart­ment there.

– Dan­ny Dankn­er, a ser­i­al entre­pre­neur, is the CEO and co-founder of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing Ltd (ACE), a leader in the field of cog­ni­tive train­ing for com­pet­i­tive ath­letes. Pre­vi­ous­ly he was on the found­ing team of Kinet­i­ca Inter­net­ting Solu­tions, and led strate­gic ini­tia­tives at Mobile­S­pear and Scepia Inter­net Solu­tions. Dan­ny is a found­ing mem­ber of Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty’s entre­pre­neur­ship forum and serves as board mem­ber of the Glob­al Entre­pre­neur­ship Net­work Israel. He will serve as a Judge in the first Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test host­ed by the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017).

– Brain­no­va­tions Judg­ing Panel

New $3m European-Israeli collaboration to build brain training system and enhance football (soccer) players’ game intelligence

by

horizon-2020_football_brain-training.

The ini­tial pilot, fund­ed under the EU Hori­zon 2020 frame­work and to be com­plet­ed by 2017, will start with lead­ing Euro­pean soc­cer acad­e­mies includ­ing Ajax Ams­ter­dam, PSV Eind­hoven, AZ Alk­maar and FC Freiburg, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sports Uni­ver­si­ty in Cologne, Ger­many. [Read more…] about New $3m Euro­pean-Israeli col­lab­o­ra­tion to build brain train­ing sys­tem and enhance foot­ball (soc­cer) play­ers’ game intelligence

IntelliGym cognitive simulation for Ice Hockey players

by

Very inter­est­ing new mar­ket development:

The Mark­er, Israel - Oct 28, 2008, Sharp­Brains,

In oth­er words, Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE) and USA Hock­ey have part­nered to bring to mar­ket a cog­ni­tive sim­u­la­tion game to improve the per­for­mance of ice hock­ey play­ers — sim­i­lar to what  ACE has been offer­ing to pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur bas­ket­ball players.

ACE has raised $2.5M, and ACE and USA Hock­ey have received a joint $800k devel­op­ment grant from the BIRD Foun­da­tion for the co-devel­op­ment of a train­ing sys­tem for Ice Hock­ey play­ers. (The arti­cle men­tions Sharp­Brains’ Mar­ket Report as a sign of how the mar­ket is grow­ing, since we cov­er ACE).

For more con­text on cog­ni­tive sim­u­la­tions, you will enjoy this Inter­view with Prof. Daniel Gopher:

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Tell us a bit about your over­all research interests.

Daniel Gopher: My main inter­est has been how to expand the lim­its of human atten­tion, infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing and response capa­bil­i­ties which are crit­i­cal in com­plex, real-time deci­sion-mak­ing, high-demand tasks such as fly­ing a mil­i­tary jet or play­ing pro­fes­sion­al bas­ket­ball. Using a ten­nis anal­o­gy, my goal has been, and is, how to help devel­op many “Wim­ble­don-like cham­pi­ons. Each with their own styles, but per­form­ing to their max­i­mum capac­i­ty to suc­ceed in their environments.

What research over the last 15–20 years has shown is that cog­ni­tion, or what we call think­ing and per­for­mance, is real­ly a set of skills that we can train sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly. And [Read more…] about Intel­li­Gym cog­ni­tive sim­u­la­tion for Ice Hock­ey players