Norwest-Venture-Partners

Lumos Labs raises $32.5m: Largest Cognitive/ Brain Fitness Investment so far

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Lumos Labs, the com­pa­ny behind lumosity.com, has raised $32.5 mil­lion dol­lars in a Series C round from Men­lo Ven­tures, First­Mark Cap­i­tal, Har­ri­son Met­al and Nor­west Ven­ture Partners.

In our 2010 mar­ket report Lumos Labs came up as one of the cat­e­go­ry Lead­ers giv­en its mar­ket and research momen­tum (not easy for a start­up to get clear momen­tum in either of those dimen­sions, much less in both of them), so our con­grat­u­la­tions to them for now adding such invest­ment trac­tion. [Read more…] about Lumos Labs rais­es $32.5m: Largest Cognitive/ Brain Fit­ness Invest­ment so far

Invitation to SharpBrains Summit — Technology for Cognitive Health and Performance

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We are excit­ed to invite you to the first vir­tu­al, glob­al Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (Jan­u­ary 18–20th, 2010). The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit will fea­ture a sharpbrains_summit_logo_webdream team of over 25 speak­ers who are lead­ers in indus­try and research from 7 coun­tries, to dis­cuss emerg­ing research, tools and best prac­tices for cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance. This inau­gur­al event will expose health and insur­ance providers, devel­op­ers, inno­va­tors at For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, investors and researchers, to the oppor­tu­ni­ties, part­ner­ships, trends, and stan­dards of the rapid­ly evolv­ing cog­ni­tive fit­ness field.

Reg­is­ter Today

Learn more and reg­is­ter Here today, at dis­count­ed ear­ly-bird rates, to receive these benefits:

  • Learn: Full access to all Con­fer­ence live ses­sions, and Down­load­able Record­ings and Handouts
  • See: lat­est tech­nolo­gies and prod­ucts dur­ing Expo Day
  • Con­nect and Dis­cuss: become a mem­ber of the Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion (mem­bers-only LinkedIn Group) through the end of 2010, access online chats dur­ing the sum­mit, meet oth­er reg­is­trants in your city
  • Under­stand the Big Pic­ture: access 10 Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by lead­ing scientists

On top of those ear­ly-bird dis­counts, we offer an addi­tion­al 15% dis­count for Sharp­Brains read­ers who want Reg­u­lar Admis­sion. Dis­count code: sharp2010. You can reg­is­ter Here.

Agenda/ Speak­ers

Monday, January 18th, 2010:

(Pre­lim­i­nary sched­ule, US Pacif­ic Time)

8–9.15am. Cog­ni­tion & Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: The New Health­care Frontier

  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains
  • David White­house, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
  • William Reich­man, Baycrest
  • P Murali Doraiswamy, Duke University

9.30–11am. Tools for Safer Dri­ving: The Oppor­tu­ni­ty with Teenagers and Adults

  • Steven Aldrich, Posit Science
  • Shlo­mo Breznitz, CogniFit
  • Jer­ri Edwards, Uni­ver­si­ty of South Florida
  • Peter Chris­tian­son, Young Dri­vers of Canada

Noon‑1.30pm. Baby Boomers and Beyond: Main­tain­ing Cog­ni­tive Vitality

Save the Date: SharpBrains Summit, Technology for Cognitive Health and Performance

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We are very excit­ed to announce the first Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence to take place Jan­u­ary 18–20th, 2010.  Over 30 lead­ing speak­ers and a pro­fes­sion­al audi­ence will dis­cuss emerg­ing inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy for life­long cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance. The Sum­mit will high­light the con­ver­gence of neu­rocog­ni­tive research, non-inva­sive tech­nol­o­gy and health­care, dis­cuss emerg­ing best prac­tices, and help pre­dict how a grow­ing range of tools may pro­vide solu­tions to cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance-relat­ed issues.

sharpbrains_summit_logo_webYou can see speak­ers and agen­da by click­ing on Sharp­Brains Sum­mit. Please reg­is­ter if you are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing: Jan­u­ary 18–20th 2010 (Pacif­ic Time).

  • Con­fer­ence: Jan­u­ary 18–19th. 9–10 pan­els to dis­cuss Mar­ket and Research Insights,  togeth­er with online discussions.
  • Expo Day: Jan­u­ary 20th. Prod­uct demos by Sponsors.

Con­firmed speak­ers and themes:

Monday, January 18th, 2010:

Cog­ni­tion and Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: The New Health­care Frontier

  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains
  • David White­house, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
  • William Reich­man, Pres­i­dent, Baycrest
  • P Murali Doraiswamy, Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try Divi­sion Head, Duke University

Tools for Safer Dri­ving: Teenagers and Old­er Adults

  • Steven Aldrich, CEO, Posit Science
  • Peter Chris­tian­son, Pres­i­dent of Young Dri­vers of Canada
  • Jer­ri Edwards, Assoc. Pro­fes­sor Uni­ver­si­ty of South Florida

Clin­i­cal Appli­ca­tions: Research­ing, Iden­ti­fy­ing, Treat­ing Cog­ni­tive Deficits

  • Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Unit­ed BioSource Corporation
  • Jonas Jen­di, CEO, Cogmed
  • Michel Noir, Pres­i­dent, Sci­en­tif­ic Brain Training
  • Elkhonon Gold­berg, Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor, SharpBrains

[Read more…] about Save the Date: Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, Tech­nol­o­gy for Cog­ni­tive Health and Performance

Cognitive Health Track at Games for Health Conference: Full Schedule Announced!

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Games for Health and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to bring you the first Cog­ni­tive Games for Health Conference - Cognitive Health TrackHealth Track in a Games for Health Con­fer­ence, June 11–12th in Boston. If you are inter­est­ed, in attend­ing the con­fer­ence, you can learn more and reg­is­ter Here.

To get a 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees ($379), you can use dis­count code: sharp09, when you reg­is­ter Here.

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Cog­ni­tive Health Track, Pow­ered by SharpBrains

Thurs­day, June 11th

10.20 (50m) Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Innovation
Speaker(s): Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

Sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic trends have con­verged to cre­ate a new $265m mar­ket in the US alone: seri­ous games, soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions that can help peo­ple of all ages assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will pro­vide a Bird’s Eye View of the sci­ence, mar­ket seg­ments and trends, com­pet­i­tive land­scape, and main chal­lenges ahead, based on The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009 report released in May, which includ­ed Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and a sur­vey of 2,000+ deci­sion-mak­ers and ear­ly adopters.

61% of respon­dents to the sur­vey Strong­ly Agreed with the state­ment “Address­ing cog­ni­tive and brain health should be a health­care pri­or­i­ty.” But, 65% Agreed/Strongly Agreed with “I don’t real­ly know what to expect from prod­ucts mak­ing brain claims.” In this ses­sion, Alvaro will pub­licly unveil the new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp, co-authored by neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and him­self, aimed at help­ing con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als under­stand and nav­i­gate this grow­ing field.

11.20 (30m) The All­state-Posit Sci­ence Part­ner­ship: Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Safer Driving 
Speaker(s): Tom War­den, All­state; Hen­ry Mah­ncke, Posit Science

Evi­dence-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams have been avail­able in retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties for sev­er­al years. Now, they are reach­ing a younger pop­u­la­tion includ­ing Boomers through inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships, like insurers.

In Octo­ber 2008 auto insur­ance com­pa­ny All­state and brain fit­ness soft­ware devel­op­er Posit Sci­ence announced a research col­lab­o­ra­tion that could lead to “poten­tial­ly the next big break­through in auto­mo­bile safe­ty”. The pur­pose of this ses­sion is to review nov­el ways of get­ting the sci­ence of cog­ni­tive train­ing into the real world where it can help peo­ple. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from All­state and Posit Sci­ence will dis­cuss why these part­ner­ships work for insur­ers, devel­op­ers, and end users. They will also pro­vide a thor­ough review of the eval­u­a­tion process a major part­ner goes through when select­ing a cog­ni­tive train­ing company.

12.00 (30m) What Con­sumers Buy and Why 
Speaker(s): Lind­say Gask­ins, Mar­bles: The Brain Store

Launched in Octo­ber 2008, Mar­bles: The Brain Store is a retail store that [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Health Track at Games for Health Con­fer­ence: Full Sched­ule Announced!

Games for Health Conference Announces First Cognitive Health Track Powered by SharpBrains

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This is a press release that went through the wire ear­li­er today. If you are inter­est­ed, in attend­ing the con­fer­ence, you can learn more and reg­is­ter Here

Note that below you can find 5 out of the 12 ses­sions — we will announce the full track tomor­row. To get a 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees, you can use dis­count code: sharp09, when you register.

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The Games for Health Project, orga­niz­ers of the 5th Annu­al Games for Health Con­fer­ence, today announced its first Cog­ni­tive Health Track pow­ered by Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research com­pa­ny focused on the brain fit­ness and the cog­ni­tive health market.

The Cog­ni­tive Health track builds upon pre­vi­ous year’s sam­pling of ses­sions look­ing at cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness, expand­ing to a full two-day track at The Games for Health Con­fer­ence, June 11–12, Boston, MA. The Con­fer­ence fea­tures the largest gath­er­ing of orga­ni­za­tions inter­est­ed in the inter­sec­tion between videogames, health and healthcare.

“There is already a very active cog­ni­tive health videogames indus­try and field of research,” said Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Games for Health Con­fer­ence. “We part­nered with Sharp­Brains to bring their exper­tise in this field our con­fer­ence plan­ning. Togeth­er we have for the first time cre­at­ed a pow­er­ful set of ses­sions and a much need­ed con­ver­sa­tion with researchers, thought-lead­ers and indus­try pio­neers who will attend the event in June.”

The track fea­tures a dozen ses­sions cov­er­ing research find­ings and part­ner­ships, imple­men­ta­tion in insur­ance, con­sumer and clin­i­cal set­tings, and spe­cial ses­sions look­ing at inno­v­a­tive areas such as dri­ver safe­ty, healthy aging, atten­tion deficits, stroke/traumatic brain injury, schiz­o­phre­nia and mul­ti­ple sclerosis.

“The con­ver­gence of inter­ac­tive media such as videogames with cog­ni­tive sci­ence opens the door to inno­v­a­tive and scal­able approach­es to [Read more…] about Games for Health Con­fer­ence Announces First Cog­ni­tive Health Track Pow­ered by SharpBrains

Top 10 Cognitive Fitness Events of 2008 (Webinar)

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We have just announced an upcom­ing webi­nar to pro­vide a mar­ket update:  Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 — A Mar­ket Update.

cognitive fitness When: Thurs­day Decem­ber 11th, from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Pacif­ic Time. The same webi­nar will be repeat­ed on Thurs­day Decem­ber 18th, from 9:00 to 10:00 pm Pacif­ic Time.

The Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events that will be dis­cussed include: 

1) Feb­ru­ary: Dakim secures a $10.6m invest­ment from Galen Part­ners. Jack LaLanne becomes spokesperson.
2) April: The Gov­ern­ment of Ontario, Cana­da, invests $10m in Bay­crest to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize cog­ni­tive fit­ness technologies.
3) April: Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan researchers reveal in the Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences how com­put­er­ized work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can gen­er­al­ize and improve flu­id intel­li­gence in healthy adults.
4) May: Humana unveils Games for Health ini­tia­tives, not renew­ing its agree­ment with Posit Science.
5) June: The US Army launch­es a new pol­i­cy requir­ing cog­ni­tive screen­ings of all sol­diers before deploy­ment (in order to [Read more…] about Top 10 Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 (Webi­nar)