Augmenting Brains

'Augmenting Brains' - is an all-day, in-person event, dedicated to the discussion of the future of brain sensing.

The event will be held on December 9, 2022 at the newly opened MIT Museum and MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA, United States.

We will cover a variety of topics, including:

• living implants
• memory fabrication
• holograms
• sleep and dreams
• and more.

Also included will be demos and inspiration stations of dream experience, and other brain-computer interfaces.

We will have a deep dive together with our speakers and audience about the multitude of current use cases and form-factors, as well as the future ones.

Addiitonally, we will cover topics such as: hardware, healthtech, entertainment, wellbeing, ethics and legislation.

Who should attend the event?

'Augmenting Brains' is perfect for BCI aficionados, sci-fi lovers, ethicists, creators, directors, producers, tinkerers, VCs, investors, heads of innovation, lab decision makers responsible for information, technology, strategy and investment in brain sensing tech.

Speakers and Agenda

In addition to world renowned scientists from the Media Lab and larger MIT community, we are extremely excited to host speakers and guests all in-person from different institutions around the world with different backgrounds. The tentative agenda is below.

10:00 AM Registration & Breakfast

10:30 AM Welcome and Intro

Nataliya Kosmyna, Ph.D – Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab;

Creator, Curator and Organizer of Augmenting Brains 2022

10:40 AM Cognitive Augmentation

Prof. Pattie Maes – MIT Media Lab; Media Arts and Sciences

11:20 AM Coffee break | Demos and Inspiration Stations

11:40 AM Writing to the Brain, Part 1 – Implanting Memories

Prof. Elizabeth F. Loftus – UCI School of Social Ecology; Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science

12:40 PM Writing to the Brain, Part 2 – Writing to the Brain in Sleep

Dr. Nathan Whitmore – MIT Media Lab

1:10 PM Lunch

2:10 PM Living with a BCI

Theresa Vaughan, BA, National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies

3:10 PM Coffee break | Demos and Inspiration Stations

3:30 PM Towards future systems? Part 1 - Living Wires

Prof. Kacy Cullen, University of Pennsylvania

4:10PM Towards future systems? Part 2 – Holograms, Entertainment and Beyond

Steven Kane, producer, Halo

4:50PM Closing Remarks

Nataliya Kosmyna, Ph.D – Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab;

Creator, Curator and Organizer of Augmenting Brains 2022