“Alvaro Fer­nan­dez syn­the­sizes and trans­lates the lat­est neu­ro­science into provoca­tive, com­pelling, and enter­tain­ing sto­ries of men­tal fit­ness and the future of the brain.” –David Pescovitz, Research Direc­tor, Insti­tute for the Future.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Sharp­Brains’  CEO & Co-Founder, speaks reg­u­larly to a wide range of audi­ences in both small, infor­mal groups and large, more for­mal ones. A two-term mem­ber of the Global Agenda Coun­cils run by the World Eco­nomic Forum, Alvaro has been quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, AP, CNN, and more. He co-authored the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, named a Best Book by AARP, and authored The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010 report. LinkedIn Pro­file: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez. If you are inter­est­ing in secur­ing Mr. Fer­nan­dez for your upcom­ing event, please Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing the details of your Speak­ing Inquiry.

Selected Past Talks

> Novem­ber 8th, San Fran­cisco, CA: Brain Fit­ness for Adap­tive Orga­ni­za­tions, at the 2011 Neu­roLead­er­ship Sum­mit. Details Here.

> Octo­ber 29th, Los Ange­les: Brain Fit­ness Today and Tomor­row, at the UCLA Tech­nol­ogy & Aging Conference.

> Octo­ber 17th, San Fran­cisco, CA: The Con­sumer Mar­ket for Neu­rotech­nol­ogy, at 2011 Neu­rotech Lead­ers Forum. Details Here.

> Sep­tem­ber 19-20th, San Fran­cisco, CA: Trans­lat­ing Neu­ro­science Into Mar­ketable Ther­a­peu­tic Inter­ven­tions, at ESCoNS. Details Here.

> Sep­tem­ber 14th, Barcelona: How and Why Dig­i­tal Tech­nology Will Trans­form Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing and Brain Health, dur­ing the “Evenings with…” series at Esade.

> June 22nd, Barcelona: La salud en el siglo XXI — Como com­batir el envejec­imiento cere­bral, at Fun­da­cion Edad y Vida.

> April 28th, San Fran­cisco: Har­ness Your Brain Plas­tic­ity for Life­long Brain Fit­ness, dur­ing the series “The Amaz­ing Brain: Anatomy & Func­tion orga­nized by Cal­i­for­nia Pacific Med­ical Center.

> March 10th, San Diego: Brain Fit­ness Offer­ings to Attract and Retain Baby Boomers, dur­ing the 2010 Con­ven­tion of the Inter­na­tional Health, Rac­quet & Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion (IHRSA).

> Feb­ru­ary 17-18th, San Fran­cisco: Teach­ing Brain Fit­ness in Your Schools and Com­mu­nity for Life­long Learn­ing and “Research-Based Evi­dence of Emerg­ing Tech­nolo­gies to Assist and Train Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tional Func­tion”, dur­ing the Learn­ing & the Brain Con­fer­ence.

> Decem­ber 1-2nd, Ontario: Main­tain­ing Auton­omy — the Brain Fit­ness Move­ment, dur­ing the Ontario Inno­va­tion Summit.

> Novem­ber 20-22nd, Dubai: pro­ceed­ings of the Coun­cil on the Aging Soci­ety dur­ing the Sum­mit of the Global Agenda run by the World Eco­nomic Forum. More infor­ma­tion here

> Novem­ber 11-12th, Prince­ton, New Jer­sey: Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion Forum on the Future Impact of Neu­ro­science and Behav­ior Change.

> Novem­ber, San Fran­cisco, Cal­i­for­nia: three book talks in Span­ish spon­sored by AARP at Jones Memo­r­ial Church, Mis­sion Neigh­bor­hood Cen­ter, and Bethany Cen­ter Senior Housing.

> Novem­ber 3rd, San Fran­cisco: Brain Fit­ness For Peak Per­for­mance, at the Asso­ci­a­tion for Cor­po­rate Growth (ACG) Speaker Series.

> Octo­ber 14th, Berke­ley, CA: Do’s and Don’ts of Brain Fit­ness for Life, at UC-Berkeley Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute. More infor­ma­tion here.

> Octo­ber 6th, Palo Alto, CA: Brain Fit­ness — Fad or Rev­o­lu­tion?, Smart­Sil­vers MIT North­ern Cal­i­for­nia event. More infor­ma­tion here.

> Sep­tem­ber 25rd, New York Pub­lic Library, Stephen Schwarz­man Build­ing: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. More infor­ma­tion here.

> July 23th, Seat­tle: Well­ness Gam­ing: Games that are Good for You panel, at Casual Connect.

> July 17th, Stevens Point, Wis­con­sin: Brain Fit­ness in Senior Hous­ing, at WAHSA’s 2009 Senior Hous­ing Conference.

> June 11th, Boston: Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Inno­va­tion, at the Games for Health Conference.

> June 1-2nd, Wash­ing­ton, DC: The Role of Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments and Brain Fit­ness in Care Man­age­ment, at the National Medicare Read­mis­sions Summit.

> April 8th, Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina Greens­boro: Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness and the Aging Work­force: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges, at the Sil­ver­ing Work­force Summit.

> April 6th, Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity: How Neu­ro­science Will Impact Edu­ca­tion and Health­care: A 5–10 Year View, at the Stan­ford SELA Summit.

> March 9-12th, San Jose: Emerg­ing Research and Tech­nolo­gies for Life Hack­ing, at ETech 2009.

> March 5th, New York Acad­emy of Med­i­cine: Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware — Con­sumers Guide to dis­tin­guish­ing hope from hype, at the Com­pre­hen­sive Approach to Demen­tia Sym­po­sium spon­sored by Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Center.

> Jan­u­ary 8-9th, Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity: Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness — Emerg­ing Trends and Chal­lenges, at the Co-Adaptive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­ogy for the Aged Sym­po­sium

Some clips

> The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, at New York Pub­lic Library. 1 hour 27 min.

> The 4 Pil­lars of Brain Health. 1:18 min.

> The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket. 90-minute-long talk and panel dis­cus­sion. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez starts at minute 8.

> The Evo­lu­tion­ary Brain. 4:56 min.

Some top­ics your group may be inter­ested in:

Topic 1: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach (gen­eral audience)

Infor­ma­tion over­load and longer lives expose our brains to more demands than even before. This inter­ac­tive talk will sur­vey the emerg­ing sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve and equip you to become your very own ‘brain fit­ness coach’. Yes, you’ll need that to spend your time and money wisely, nav­i­gat­ing the maze of frag­mented research, often super­fi­cial media cov­er­age and exag­ger­ated mar­ket­ing claims. This talk is based on The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, named a Best Book by AARP in Octo­ber 2011. We will first debunk pop­u­lar myths that stand in the way of under­stand­ing how the brain works. We will then dis­cuss the com­ple­men­tary roles and mech­a­nisms under­pin­ning the major lifestyle pil­lars for brain fit­ness: healthy nutri­tion, aer­o­bic exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and men­tal stim­u­la­tion that incor­po­rates nov­elty, vari­ety and chal­lenge. Finally, we’ll engage in a vari­ety of brief and fun activ­i­ties to drive home the key mes­sages around what “brain fit­ness” means and how to enhance it.

Topic 2: Exer­cis­ing Our Brains: How to Use It to Improve It (gen­eral audience)

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have shown that, no mat­ter our age, our lifestyle can influ­ence the gen­er­a­tion, strength­en­ing and sur­vival of new neu­rons and their con­nec­tions, with clear guide­lines to fol­low. You have prob­a­bly heard “Use it or lose it”. Lat­est research indi­cates, “Use it and improve it!”. In this talk, we will com­bine both research and fun group activ­i­ties to drive home the key insights and take-aways on How to stay sharp across the lifes­pan. This talk is based on The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, named a Best Book by AARP in Octo­ber 2011.

3. How and Why Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity Appli­ca­tions Will Trans­form Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing and Brain Health (pro­fes­sional audience)

You have a brain. Make it reflect on this provoca­tive vision of how the con­ver­gence of demo­graphic and polit­i­cal trends with the dis­cov­er­ies of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve can give rise to a new field and mar­ket­place capa­ble of trans­form­ing the way in which we develop and main­tain our brains across the lifes­pan, in order to attain the high­est pos­si­ble level of brain health and per­for­mance through­out our lives. The neu­ro­sci­en­tist Ramón y Cajal once said: “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor of his own brain”. This is becom­ing a pre­vail­ing desire shared by par­ents, pro­fes­sion­als, baby boomers. Are you ready?

If you are inter­est­ing in secur­ing Mr. Fer­nan­dez for your upcom­ing event please Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing the details of your Speak­ing Inquiry.

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