entrepreneur

Upcoming: Virtual book tour to explore the frontier of Emotional Intelligence and Technology

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Dear Sharp­Brains community,

I hope you’re stay­ing healthy and safe. As you may know, my mem­oir, Girl Decod­ed, pub­lished by Pen­guin Ran­dom House, comes out on April 21st. I’d planned numer­ous events across the U.S. and abroad to share my sto­ry with all of you. But, in light of the glob­al health cri­sis sur­round­ing COVID-19, every­thing is right­ful­ly canceled.

In this time when we need to social­ly dis­tance, I know I’m crav­ing human con­nec­tion more than ever. I still want to con­nect with you all on the themes dis­cussed in my book. [Read more…] about Upcom­ing: Vir­tu­al book tour to explore the fron­tier of Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Technology

Brainy Innovation Tips from Edward Kliphuis, Investment Director with Merck Ventures

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Edward Kli­phuis

Ques­tion: Edward, 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 to tar­get depres­sion, stress and fatigue in a quan­tifi­able man­ner (ie. no well­ness-like claims, but real data sup­port­ing an improve­ment in the afore­men­tioned indi­ca­tions). Treat­ments and ear­ly detec­tion too.

Also, ways  to mon­i­tor lon­gi­tu­di­nal cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties (ie. per­son-spe­cif­ic brain func­tion over the course of a num­ber of years). Done on a wider pop­u­la­tion this could pro­vide insights into the impact of cer­tain exter­nal fac­tors such as food, air qual­i­ty, etc.

 

Ques­tion: And what advice would you give an entre­pre­neur launch­ing an inno­va­tion to address those needs–for the approach to be suc­cess­ful and sustainable?

Answer: Focus on the right mod­el from day one: You need to iden­ti­fy right away the best approach for the oppor­tu­ni­ty at hand — for exam­ple, reg­u­lat­ed med­ical approach vs. gen­er­al well­ness? Both are viable but going from unreg­u­lat­ed to reg­u­lat­ed is hard­ly pos­si­ble where­as the oppo­site is viable (although cre­ates a risk of off-label use…)

 

– Edward Kli­phuis is an Invest­ment Direc­tor with Mer­ck Ven­tures BV, the Cor­po­rate Ven­ture Cap­i­tal arm of Mer­ck KGaA, Darm­stadt, Ger­many. He is respon­si­ble for the New Busi­ness­es fund, which invests glob­al­ly in trans­for­ma­tion­al ideas dri­ven by great entre­pre­neurs. The New Busi­ness­es fund seeks to invest in strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ties beyond Merck’s cur­rent busi­ness­es, make cross over invest­ments between busi­ness­es and invest in dig­i­ti­za­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties. The total vol­ume of the cor­po­rate ven­ture fund is €300 mil­lion. 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

Resource for Brain Fitness Centers

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Our Mar­ket Report has received some recent addi­tion­al accolades:

“In a wide­ly scat­tered and unreg­u­lat­ed field, this clear, cred­i­ble document
is a first-class, pio­neer­ing com­pendi­um that’s like­ly to become indus­try-stan­dard
for all of us in this field. Well done!”
— Eric Jensen, Founder of Jensen Learn­ing Corporation.

“This is the first clear, con­cise and com­pre­hen­sive overview and analy­sis I have seen of Brain Fitness Market Reportthe emerg­ing Brain-Train­ing mar­ket­place. It is a great mar­ket research for every investor, entre­pre­neur, man­ag­er, researcher and oth­ers who seek an under­stand­ing of the sub­ject. Per­son­al­ly, I was wait­ing such a review for quite a while. The Sharp­Brains staff, led by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, real­ly did a great job here.”

– Dan­ny Dankn­er, CEO, Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE).

“Neu­ro­science is at a cross­roads, and The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2008 by Sharp­Brains, points the way for­ward. Our under­stand­ing of how the brain works is just begin­ning to yield real fruit in the form of prod­ucts that tru­ly improve the func­tion of the brain. This reports gives any­one inter­est­ed in how to under­stand which prod­ucts are tru­ly in a posi­tion to make a dif­fer­ence in brain func­tion, and which mar­kets will be inter­est­ed and prof­itable for such prod­ucts an invalu­able guide. We found the analy­sis clear, pre­cise, loaded with sub­stan­tive insight. One would be fool­hardy not to use this pub­li­ca­tion as the best guide to this mar­ket.”

– Dr. Arthur Lavin, Asso­ciate Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Pedi­atrics, Case Med­ical School, and Med­ical Direc­tor of A Work­ing Mind.

“As we begin the task of devel­op­ing a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at our Sun­rise Senior Liv­ing Com­mu­ni­ty, this Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket Report is prov­ing [Read more…] about Resource for Brain Fit­ness Centers