When you think of how the PC has altered the fab­ric of soci­ety, per­mit­ting instant access to infor­ma­tion and automat­ing processes beyond our wildest dreams, it is instruc­tive to con­sider that much of this progress was dri­ven by Moore’s law. Halv­ing the size of semi­con­duc­tor every 18 months catal­ysed an expo­nen­tial accel­er­a­tion in performance.

Why is this story rel­e­vant to mod­ern neu­ro­science and the work­ings of the brain? Because trans­for­ma­tive tech­no­log­i­cal progress arises out of choice and the actions of indi­vid­u­als who see poten­tial for change, and we may well be on the verge of such progress. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me now share what the Judg­ing Panel and the Sharp­Brains team found most impres­sive from each Win­ner and Final­ist of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, accom­pa­nied by some addi­tional infor­ma­tion on each of these 10 note­wor­thy ini­tia­tives and case studies.

Grand Prize Winner

USA Hockey, Inc., is the National Gov­ern­ing Body of the sport of ice hockey in the United States. With a mem­ber­ship of nearly 600,000 play­ers, coaches, offi­cials and vol­un­teers that span all 50 states, USA Hockey seeks to pro­mote the growth of hockey and pro­vide the best pos­si­ble expe­ri­ence for all par­tic­i­pants by encour­ag­ing, devel­op­ing, advanc­ing and admin­is­ter­ing the sport.

Project Scope: The National Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram (NTDP), a USA Hockey body, is a full-time devel­op­ment pro­gram aimed at prepar­ing under-18 student-athletes for par­tic­i­pa­tion on US National Teams. Its efforts focus both on high-caliber par­tic­i­pa­tion on the ice and indi­vid­ual skill devel­op­ment. The pro­gram is com­posed of two squads: the US National Under-18 and Under-17 Teams.

Dur­ing the past hockey sea­son, the NTDP imple­mented a cog­ni­tive train­ing sys­tem designed to help hockey play­ers develop per­cep­tion and decision-making skills called The Hockey Intel­li­Gym. Designed to enhance ‘Hockey Sense’—or the way play­ers gather infor­ma­tion from their sur­round­ings, make and exe­cute decisions—The Hockey Intel­li­Gym train­ing sys­tem uti­lizes a software-based train­ing envi­ron­ment with cus­tomized algo­rithms that adjust train­ing pro­grams to indi­vid­ual play­ers accord­ing to abil­ity and progress. Play­ers engaged in a twice-a-week cog­ni­tive train­ing reg­i­men that became an inte­gral part of their over­all train­ing pro­gram dur­ing which time cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists mon­i­tored play­ers’ per­for­mance and pro­vided coach­ing staff with analy­ses and progress reports. Among sta­tis­ti­cal fig­ures mea­sured, the most notable was the win ratio of teams involved, as Intel­li­Gym trained team won more games.

The Intel­li­Gym pro­gram took more than two years and $2 mil­lion to put together with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE) and was enabled by a grant from the BIRD Foun­da­tion who sci­en­tif­i­cally reviewed the plan and finan­cially sup­ported it.

Project Leader: Scott Mon­aghan, Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions, USA Hockey National Team Devel­op­ment Program

Selected com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Excel­lent team approach between spe­cial­ist, coach and player. Great con­cept and need, and insights/model could apply very broadly to skill devel­op­ment. The adap­ta­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing to this par­tic­u­lar sports domain is clever and can be gen­er­al­ized to a wide range of other activ­i­ties. I was impressed with the USA Hockey National Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram and their Hockey Intel­li­gym. To develop/adapt such a pro­gram and clearly demon­strate it’s impact on real-life per­for­mance, is fan­tas­tic. There is also a great oppor­tu­nity to expand this to even more ath­letes and sports and to every­day life.

Sil­ver Prize Winners

All­state (NYSE: ALL) is the nation’s largest pub­licly held per­sonal lines insurer. All­state is rein­vent­ing pro­tec­tion and retire­ment to help indi­vid­u­als in approx­i­mately 17 mil­lion house­holds pro­tect what they have today and bet­ter pre­pare for tomorrow.

Project Scope: All­state embarked on a jour­ney with Posit Sci­ence Cor­po­ra­tion to eval­u­ate the inter­est in and effec­tive­ness of Posit Science’s software—leveraging tech­nol­ogy shown in National Insti­tutes of Health funded stud­ies to improve visual pro­cess­ing skills impor­tant for safe driving—to test a soft­ware pro­gram (Insight) in Penn­syl­va­nia. Selected dri­vers, 50 years and older, were invited to help val­i­date the impact cog­ni­tive train­ing has on dri­ving safety.

The project was a “proof of con­cept” for what may turn out to be a sig­nif­i­cant effort by All­state to pre­vent injuries and save lives, enable older peo­ple to main­tain their inde­pen­dence longer and pro­vide peace of mind to adult chil­dren faced with dif­fi­cult deci­sions as par­ents age. The most impor­tant reduc­tion was in insured losses and result­ing injuries, trauma and dis­rup­tion to the lives of those involved in auto col­li­sions. After observ­ing the acci­dent behav­ior of those who com­pleted the Posit pro­gram, rel­a­tive to a well selected con­trol group, All­state saw a mea­sur­able decline that was sta­tis­ti­cally valid.

Project Leader: Tom War­den, Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent, All­state Research and Plan­ning Center

Selected com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: The poten­tial impact of this pro­gram is sec­ond to none. I was impressed with Allstate’s project and their results that showed that the Posit Sci­ence soft­ware pos­i­tively impacted the acci­dent records of those com­plet­ing the pro­gram. All­state should be com­mended for try­ing some­thing new and dif­fer­ent and for cre­at­ing such an ini­tia­tive. Pretty soon I can imag­ine brain fit­ness dis­counts along­side safe dri­ver and other discounts.

Nation­wide, based in Colum­bus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diver­si­fied insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions in the U.S. and is rated A+ by A.M. Best. The com­pany pro­vides a full range of per­son­al­ized insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices, includ­ing includ­ing auto and life insur­ance, pen­sions, health and pro­duc­tiv­ity ser­vices, and more.

Project Scope: Nation­wide Mutual Insur­ance worked with ben­e­fits provider OptumHealth and their part­ner Brain Resource to add a Web based brain train­ing tool (MyBrain­So­lu­tions) to help employ­ees enhance pos­i­tiv­ity, emo­tional resilience and deal with oth­ers more effec­tively — all key ele­ments to pro­duc­tiv­ity. More than 500 employ­ees enrolled in the company’s ‘Healthy Hol­i­day Chal­lenge’ dur­ing the first week. The results of the new resource led to more pos­i­tive behav­ior changes and greater pro­duc­tiv­ity among the workforce.

As part of the MyBrain­So­lu­tions launch, asso­ciates were asked to reg­is­ter, take a base­line brain assess­ment, accu­mu­late a tar­get num­ber of points dur­ing a 30-day period and then take a sec­ond brain assess­ment. The com­pany found that aspects of pos­i­tiv­ity, emo­tional resilience and social skills improved in the short 6-week ini­tia­tive and saw small changes in pro­duc­tiv­ity were notice­able as well. 87% of those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gram indi­cated they were plan­ning to take addi­tional steps to improve health after par­tic­i­pat­ing while 33.5% wouldn’t have accessed other resources to address health and well­be­ing if it weren’t for the initiative.

Project Leader: Kath­leen Herath, AVP Health & Productivity

Selected com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Har­vard Busi­ness Review esti­mated a cou­ple years ago that $150B is lost annu­ally as a result of lost employee pro­duc­tiv­ity. Given all of the life events and tran­si­tions that indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­ence each year that can dis­tract, this pro­vides a fea­si­ble and attrac­tive lever for employ­ees to take advan­tage of. Employ­ers of the future that can imple­ment inno­v­a­tive mod­els such as these to adapt to the chang­ing needs of employ­ees, enhance employee pro­duc­tiv­ity, and help to rede­fine what work means by infus­ing the pro­fes­sional with the per­sonal will win, and have as a reward loyal employ­ees, a happy cul­ture, and an over­all higher per­form­ing work­force. The pos­i­tive self-report mea­sures were impres­sive as well as the improve­ments in such a short period of time. Seems to have poten­tial for replic­a­bil­ity with scal­able, low-cost pro­grams. In prin­ci­ple this approach could have large soci­etal ben­e­fits. Imple­ment­ing cog­ni­tive train­ing in a work place is novel and taps into the desire to opti­mize pro­fes­sional func­tion­ing as well as stave off decline.  The emo­tional and self-regulation train­ing is extremely impor­tant in the work­place setting.

Rest of Top 10 Finalists

(Note: out of the 40 orga­ni­za­tions that sub­mit­ted entries to the inau­gural 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, 10 became Top 10 Final­ists. Here we want to rec­og­nize the orga­ni­za­tions which, while not win­ning the over­all con­test, did impress the judg­ing panel with the qual­ity of their ongo­ing ini­tia­tives. They are ordered by the approx­i­mate age of their end user pop­u­la­tion, from younger to older:

Most Inno­v­a­tive Spe­cial Ed School

Arrow­smith School offers a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, tar­get­ing 19 areas of the brain most com­monly involved in learn­ing. The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, which orig­i­nated in Toronto, is now offered in schools in Canada and the US.

Project Scope: Help reme­di­ate Learn­ing Dis­abil­i­ties by devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a pro­pri­etary suite of neuroplasticity-based exer­cises in 3 for­mats: computer-based, audi­tory, pen and paper.

• Project Leader: Bar­bara Arrow­smith, Director
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel:  How easy would it be to say “they’s not smart enough” or “they’re mak­ing excuses”, instead of “they have a cog­ni­tive short­com­ing that can be addressed.” The tar­get audi­ence of 5–10% of school chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties can now have a fight­ing chance if mod­els like these can be scaled through pol­icy and/or repli­ca­tion. This gets my vote as the model cre­ates almost immea­sur­able life­time impact for those for­tu­nate enough to be reap all the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of the pro­gram. Arrow­smith efforts since 1979 puts them in a class of their own as pio­neers. Arrow­smith also has a process learn­ing from and refin­ing its ini­tia­tives. Pro­gram can be built fur­ther on very solid foundations.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Behav­ioral Health Provider

Uni­ver­sity Behav­ioral Health­Care (UBHC) was estab­lished in 1971 as a divi­sion of the Uni­ver­sity of Med­i­cine and Den­tistry of New Jer­sey (UMDNJ) and is one of the largest providers of behav­ioral health­care ser­vices in the country.

Project Scope: Reme­di­ate cog­ni­tive impair­ments asso­ci­ated with severe men­tal ill­ness by devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing an inno­v­a­tive cur­ricu­lum and pro­pri­etary man­ual for cog­ni­tive rehab sup­port groups, com­bin­ing best of Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­apy, cog­ni­tive train­ing, and social skills training.

• Project Leader: Steven M. Sil­ver­stein, Ph.D., Direc­tor, Divi­sion of Schiz­o­phre­nia Research & Direc­tor of Research
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Note­wor­thy person-centered approach, focused on how to impact qual­ity of life with self-empowerment tools and social support.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Foundation

The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safetyhas a mis­sion to iden­tify prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als that pro­mote good safety practices.

Project Scope: Improve dri­ving safety among older adults by  pro­mot­ing and test­ing visual pro­cess­ing train­ing pro­gram InSight by Posit Science.

• Project Leader: Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent and CEO
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Very high qual­ity pro­gram Inno­v­a­tive. Emi­nently scal­able. Ben­e­fits users, AAA, and com­mu­nity at large – very good synergy.This approach grounds cog­ni­tive train­ing in an activ­ity that for many is crit­i­cal to inde­pen­dence. The tie to insur­ance will moti­vate the train­ing which may increase road safety and have broader ben­e­fits for cog­ni­tive health.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Hospital

Saint Luke’s Brain and Stroke Insti­tute, part of Saint Luke’s Health Sys­tem in Kansas and Mis­souri, cov­ers the entire spec­trum of care includ­ing acute inter­ven­tion, pre­ven­tion of com­pli­ca­tions, sec­ondary pre­ven­tion and neurorehabilitation.

Project Scope: Help extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing and address cog­ni­tive impair­ments by mak­ing acces­si­ble a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter that com­bines edu­ca­tion, assess­ments, lifestyle advice and tar­geted neu­rocog­ni­tive and mindfulness-based training.

• Project Leader: John Cor­ba­ley, M.S., M.A., CCC/Sp., Direc­tor, Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Saint Luke’s Hos­pi­tal of Kansas City
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Saint Luke’s pro­gram was impres­sive in a num­ber of ways. I liked that they worked with mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines to cre­ate a holis­tic pro­gram focused on improved brain health through cog­ni­tive train­ing, nutri­tion and exer­cise as well as other activ­i­ties. It is no sur­prise that they have a wait list of users eager to join their program.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Adult Education

Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict has a mis­sion to ensure that all stu­dents grad­u­ate as car­ing, com­pe­tent, and crit­i­cal thinkers, as well as fully-informed, engaged, and con­tribut­ing cit­i­zens, pre­pared to suc­ceed in col­lege and career. Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion ser­vices empower adults through through edu­ca­tion and training.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing (for new pilot: improve aca­d­e­mic suc­cess among at-risk stu­dents) by offer­ing a Brain Fit­ness Class that com­bines cur­ricu­lum, dis­cus­sions and com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing (by Posit Sci­ence, for older adults; by Lumos Labs, for new pilot with young adults).

• Project Leader: Teri Barr, Brain Health Pro­gram Coordinator
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: Strong approach to over­come some of the age bound­aries among tar­geted pop­u­la­tions. What I love the most about this won­der­ful suc­cess story is how this pro­gram has been able to appeal to indi­vid­u­als across socio-economic, demo­graphic, and edu­ca­tional back­grounds, and in the process deliver both real and per­ceived value. One way I think it has done this is through pre­sent­ing a multi-faceted value propo­si­tion (i.e., build cog­ni­tive health + build com­mu­nity + have fun in the process) in a sin­gle set­ting. Lessons learned were also very well artic­u­lated, and the approach of com­bin­ing high-tech with high-touch I thought was inge­nious and real­is­tic given the context.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Men­tal Health Association

The Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Rock­land County, in New York State, is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with a mis­sion to pre­vent men­tal ill­ness and fos­ter men­tal well­ness through com­mu­nity out­reach, direct ser­vice and advo­cacy for leg­is­la­tion and programs.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing by offer­ing a cog­ni­tive health series of live events to engage the com­mu­nity with a stigma-free, proac­tive brain fit­ness mes­sage, sup­ported by pro­fes­sional train­ing, social­iza­tion plat­forms and cog­ni­tive train­ing (by CogniFit).

• Project Leader: Karen Oates, Director
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: So great to see a Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion pro­mot­ing this impor­tant project and ally­ing with so many groups and orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing Cog­niFit, in doing so. Great that they have been able to over­come the stigma so often asso­ci­ated with aging and men­tal fit­ness through the project. With the man­ual and pam­phlet, there are excel­lent repli­ca­tion possibilities.

Most Inno­v­a­tive Health Plan

SCAN Health Plan has been focus­ing for more than 30 years on the unique needs of peo­ple with Medicare and is now the country’s fourth largest not-for-profit Medicare Advan­tage plan. The com­pany cur­rently has nearly 120,000 mem­bers in Cal­i­for­nia and Arizona.

Project Scope: Extend healthy inde­pen­dent liv­ing by devel­op­ing the con­cept of a “SCAN Van” to deliver health screen­ings & edu­ca­tion com­bined with phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive exer­cise (Wii gam­ing; touch screen-based cog­ni­tive train­ing by Hap­pyNeu­ron) in places where seniors gather.

• Project Leader: Lena Perel­man, Direc­tor of Com­mu­nity Outreach
• Selected Com­ments by Judg­ing Panel: A clever plan for the deliv­ery of cog­ni­tive exer­cises. SCAN’s is inno­v­a­tive not only because its mobile but because it presents a more holis­tic approach to brain health with its “multi-pronged” program.

Here you can learn more about the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.

Please join us in con­grat­u­lat­ing USA Hockey, All­state, and Nation­wide, for reach­ing the podium of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, unveiled today.

The podium’s top posi­tion went to USA Hockey National Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram (NTDP), a full-time devel­op­ment pro­gram aimed at prepar­ing student-athletes for par­tic­i­pa­tion on the US National Under-18 and Under-17 Teams, for its inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive train­ing sys­tem designed with the help of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE) and the BIRD Foun­da­tion to help hockey play­ers develop per­cep­tion and decision-making skills. More than two years in the mak­ing and $2 mil­lion to pro­duce, the Hockey Intel­li­Gym offers play­ers a video-game-like train­ing envi­ron­ment to enhance ‘hockey-sense’-the infor­ma­tion gath­ered from sur­round­ings to make and exe­cute play­ing deci­sions on-ice. Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, Intel­li­Gym train­ing helped NTDP teams win more games than non-trained teams.

Judges selected the entry for its inspir­ing team approach-an inter­sec­tion between spe­cial­ist, coach and player. To adapt such a pro­gram and demon­strate its impact on real-life per­for­mance, they felt, opened new oppor­tu­ni­ties for exten­sion to other sports and every­day life.

“We’re extremely hon­ored that the Hockey Intel­li­Gym is being rec­og­nized with this pres­ti­gious award,” said Dave Ogrean, exec­u­tive direc­tor of USA Hockey. “Together with ACE and the BIRD Foun­da­tion, we’re proud to have devel­oped what is a truly inno­v­a­tive train­ing prod­uct that helps enhance the decision-making skills of our athletes.”

Entries from All­state and Nation­wide Mutual Insur­ance rounded out the competition’s other top-performers. Nation­wide Mutual Insurance’s ‘Healthy Hol­i­day Chal­lenge’ offered a Web based tool-MyBrainSolutions-to help employ­ees enhance pos­i­tiv­ity, emo­tional resilience and deal with oth­ers more effec­tively — all key ele­ments to pro­duc­tiv­ity. In Penn­syl­va­nia, All­state invited selected dri­vers, 50 years and older, to help val­i­date the impact tar­geted cog­ni­tive train­ing such as Posit Sci­ence InSight can have on dri­ving safety in an effort to pre­vent injuries, save lives, enable older peo­ple to main­tain their inde­pen­dence longer and pro­vide peace of mind to adult chil­dren faced with dif­fi­cult deci­sions as par­ents age.

The remain­ing Top 10 Final­ists included (in alpha­bet­i­cal order):

• AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety
• Arrow­smith School
• Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Rock­land County
• Oak­land Uni­fied School District
• Saint Luke’s Brain and Stroke Institute
• SCAN Health Plan
• Uni­ver­sity Behav­ioral HealthCare

In its first year, the com­pe­ti­tion showed con­sid­er­able promise with 40 entries from pres­ti­gious orga­ni­za­tions and com­pa­nies around the world. “We’re delighted to have so many entries which show­case that brain fit­ness is for every­one at any age,” said Sharp­Brains’ CEO and Co-Founder Alvaro Fer­nan­dez. “The brain fit­ness field is still in its infancy but given today’s longer life spans and the accom­pa­ny­ing desire to make those years healthy and pro­duc­tive, we believe it’s impor­tant to rec­og­nize those orga­ni­za­tions pio­neer­ing the way and adding to col­lec­tive learning.”

-> To learn more about the Inno­va­tion Awards, click Here.
-> To down­load full Press Kit, click Here (includes logos, FAQ, ini­tia­tive descrip­tions, PR contacts).

A full 200+ page mar­ket report detail­ing all ten final­ist case stud­ies in the con­text of over­all research and mar­ket trends will be avail­able next month.

Press con­tact:
Rebecca Brink
PR Rep — Sharp­Brains
rebecca at brinkcon­sult­ing dot biz

About Sharp­Brains and the Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards

Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm cov­er­ing the emerg­ing brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health mar­ket. Its flag­ship indus­try report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket and con­sumer guide The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness help deci­sion mak­ers and con­sumers nav­i­gate the emerg­ing brain fit­ness field based on evidence-based infor­ma­tion and inde­pen­dent analy­sis. The orga­ni­za­tion also hosts the 3-day online global and vir­tual Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, a first of its kind con­fer­ence, engag­ing pro­fes­sion­als across the globe on the state of cog­ni­tive fit­ness research, tech­nol­ogy and mar­ket trends. SharpBrains.com, the firm’s edu­ca­tional blog and web­site, is a mem­ber of the Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Part­ner Network.

Designed to fos­ter inno­va­tion and best prac­tice shar­ing, the Awards cel­e­brate out­stand­ing pio­neers apply­ing neuroplasticity-based research and tools in the ‘real world’. Put on by inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm Sharp­Brains of San Fran­cisco, the Awards rec­og­nize orga­ni­za­tions devis­ing and imple­ment­ing results-oriented, scal­able ini­tia­tives demon­strat­ing com­mit­ment to the brain fit­ness of orga­ni­za­tion clients, mem­bers, patients, stu­dents or employees-and show­case inno­v­a­tive uses of non-invasive tools to improve cog­ni­tive and emo­tional functions.

Impor­tant reminder: mem­bers of the Judg­ing Panel will rec­og­nize the Final­ists and the 3 Win­ners in an Awards Cer­e­mony Call on Mon­day, noon-1pm Pacific Time.

In order to par­tic­i­pate in the call:

• Mem­bers of the Press can reg­is­ter, free: Here (seri­ous blog­gers can apply too)
• Any­one else can reg­is­ter ($25): Here

Out of the 40 orga­ni­za­tions that sub­mit­ted entries to the inau­gural 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, the 10 Final­ists (ordered by approx­i­mate age of end user pop­u­la­tion, from younger to older) are:

Arrow­smith School offers a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, tar­get­ing 19 areas of the brain most com­monly involved in learn­ing. The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, which orig­i­nated in Toronto, is now offered in schools in Canada and the US.

USA Hockey, Inc., is the National Gov­ern­ing Body of the sport of ice hockey in the United States. With a mem­ber­ship of nearly 600,000 play­ers, coaches, offi­cials and vol­un­teers that span all 50 states, USA Hockey seeks to pro­mote the growth of hockey and pro­vide the best pos­si­ble expe­ri­ence for all par­tic­i­pants by encour­ag­ing, devel­op­ing, advanc­ing and admin­is­ter­ing the sport.

Nation­wide, based in Colum­bus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diver­si­fied insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tions in the U.S. and is rated A+ by A.M. Best. The com­pany pro­vides a full range of per­son­al­ized insur­ance and finan­cial ser­vices, includ­ing includ­ing auto and life insur­ance, pen­sions, health and pro­duc­tiv­ity ser­vices, and more.

Uni­ver­sity Behav­ioral Health­Care (UBHC) was estab­lished in 1971 as a divi­sion of the Uni­ver­sity of Med­i­cine and Den­tistry of New Jer­sey (UMDNJ) and is one of the largest providers of behav­ioral health­care ser­vices in the country.

All­state (NYSE: ALL) is the nation’s largest pub­licly held per­sonal lines insurer. All­state is rein­vent­ing pro­tec­tion and retire­ment to help indi­vid­u­als in approx­i­mately 17 mil­lion house­holds pro­tect what they have today and bet­ter pre­pare for tomorrow.

The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety has a mis­sion to iden­tify prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als that pro­mote good safety practices.

Saint Luke’s Brain and Stroke Insti­tute, part of Saint Luke’s Health Sys­tem in Kansas and Mis­souri, cov­ers the entire spec­trum of care includ­ing acute inter­ven­tion, pre­ven­tion of com­pli­ca­tions, sec­ondary pre­ven­tion and neurorehabilitation.

Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict has a mis­sion to ensure that all stu­dents grad­u­ate as car­ing, com­pe­tent, and crit­i­cal thinkers, as well as fully-informed, engaged, and con­tribut­ing cit­i­zens, pre­pared to suc­ceed in col­lege and career. Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion ser­vices empower adults through through edu­ca­tion and training.

The Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Rock­land County, in New York State, is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with a mis­sion to pre­vent men­tal ill­ness and fos­ter men­tal well­ness through com­mu­nity out­reach, direct ser­vice and advo­cacy for leg­is­la­tion and programs.

SCAN Health Plan has been focus­ing for more than 30 years on the unique needs of peo­ple with Medicare and is now the country’s fourth largest not-for-profit Medicare Advan­tage plan. The com­pany cur­rently has nearly 120,000 mem­bers in Cal­i­for­nia and Arizona.

What are these orga­ni­za­tions doing in order to be rec­og­nized as Final­ists of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards? Which among them will be the 3 Win­ners? Stay tuned…answers on Monday.

We have received 40 excel­lent entries to the inau­gural Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards describ­ing pio­neer­ing ini­tia­tives to apply neuroplasticity-based find­ings and tools to a vari­ety of purposes/ age groups through the lifes­pan: aca­d­e­mic per­for­mance, sports per­for­mance, pro­fes­sional per­for­mance, healthy aging, clin­i­cal and men­tal health pur­poses. Most came from orga­ni­za­tions based in North Amer­ica, but we were glad to see also a good num­ber com­ing from Europe and Asia Pacific.

More infor­ma­tion here: Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.

Win­ners will be announced on May 24th at the State of Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Webi­nar. Reg­is­tra­tion ($25) is open now, and par­tic­i­pants with also be able to access the Exec­u­tive Sum­mary of our 2010 mar­ket report, and the LinkedIn pri­vate group Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Innovation.

Please remem­ber we are accept­ing entries until end of this Thurs­day, April 15th. Win­ners will be announced on May 24th, 2010.

How to Apply: Orga­ni­za­tions can use this Entry Form to sub­mit entries (opens a Word document).

Descrip­tion: the new annual Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, designed to fos­ter inno­va­tion and best prac­tice shar­ing by cel­e­brat­ing out­stand­ing pio­neers who apply neuroplasticity-based research and tools in the “real world”. The awards will rec­og­nize orga­ni­za­tions that are devis­ing and imple­ment­ing results-oriented and scal­able ini­tia­tives that demon­strate their com­mit­ment to the brain fit­ness of their clients, mem­bers, patients, stu­dents or employ­ees, and show­case inno­v­a­tive uses of non-invasive tools to improve cog­ni­tive and emo­tional func­tions and real-world outcomes.

Prizes

• 1 Grand Prize Win­ner will receive: $2,500 check, plus other benefits.
• 2 Sil­ver Prize Win­ners will each receive: $1,000 check, plus other benefits.
• 7 Final­ists will each receive: $250 check, plus other benefits.

More infor­ma­tion on Judges, process, and dates, here: 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.

We are receiv­ing many good ques­tions about the new Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards; below you have a few Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions. Please let us know if you have any more questions!

Is there a for­mal nom­i­na­tion process?
No. Any orga­ni­za­tion can sub­mit an entry, and/ or encour­age oth­ers to do so.

Can a ven­dor and a client orga­ni­za­tion sub­mit a joint entry? if not, who sub­mits the entry, and who wins the Award?
The Awards are designed to directly rec­og­nize Users, not Ven­dors. The pri­mary orga­ni­za­tion to sub­mit an entry and receive the Award is the one using lat­est tools and pro­grams (technology-based on not) to take care of the brain fit­ness of their own clients/ patients/ employ­ees. Now, the tools and pro­grams used will be pub­licly rec­og­nized as part of Award Winner’s entry and case study.

Your eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria include “Value of Lessons Learned” (20%). What you mean by ‘lessons learned”?
Pio­neers are will­ing to learn by doing and to share insights from their expe­ri­ence with other orga­ni­za­tions which may be con­sid­er­ing sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives. For exam­ple, what were some dif­fi­cul­ties in imple­ment­ing and grow­ing the pro­gram? what was end user response? how were results mea­sured? what tool/s were selected and why?

Will the infor­ma­tion con­tained in the sub­mit­ted Entries be shared? They may be great case stud­ies
Full 3 Win­ning Entries will be shared pub­licly, while full Final­ist Entries will only be shared with Sum­mit participants.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out the Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards page.

We are pleased to announce the new annual Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, designed to fos­ter inno­va­tion and best prac­tice shar­ing by cel­e­brat­ing out­stand­ing pio­neers who apply neuroplasticity-based research and tools in the “real world”. The awards will rec­og­nize orga­ni­za­tions that are devis­ing and imple­ment­ing results-oriented and scal­able ini­tia­tives that demon­strate their com­mit­ment to the brain fit­ness of their clients, mem­bers, patients, stu­dents or employ­ees, and show­case inno­v­a­tive uses of non-invasive tools to improve cog­ni­tive and emo­tional func­tions and “real-world” outcomes.

Prizes

1 Grand Prize Win­ner will receive: $2,500 check, con­sult­ing ses­sion with Sharp­Brains staff, 2 tick­ets for each Sharp­Brains Sum­mit in 2011; 10 signed copies of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

2 Sil­ver Prize Win­ners will each receive: $1,000 check, con­sult­ing ses­sion with Sharp­Brains staff, 2 tick­ets for each Sharp­Brains Sum­mit in 2011, 10 signed copies of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

7 Final­ists will each receive: $250 check, 1 ticket for each Sharp­Brains Sum­mit in 2011, 10 signed copies of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

How to Enter

Orga­ni­za­tions can use this Entry Form to sub­mit entries by end of Thurs­day, April 15th, 2010.

The 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards will rec­og­nize unique ini­tia­tives that not only bring mea­sur­able ben­e­fits to end users but also are closely con­nected to fur­ther­ing the objec­tives of the orga­ni­za­tion in which they oper­ate, via (for exam­ple) increased customer/ patient sat­is­fac­tion, employee engage­ment, brand­ing ben­e­fits, pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment gains, and oth­ers. All eli­gi­ble sub­mis­sions will be eval­u­ated based on the fol­low­ing criteria:

• 20%: Mea­sur­able Ben­e­fits for end users
• 20%: Mea­sur­able Ben­e­fits for organization
• 20%: Cre­ativ­ity and Inno­va­tion of approach
• 20%: Scal­a­bil­ity of initiative
• 20%: Value of Lessons Learned

Process

March 10th: Awards announced
By April 15th: All entries col­lected
By April 30th: Sharp­Brains staff selects 10 final­ists
By May 15th: judges score final­ists and select 1 Grand Prize Win­ner and 2 Sil­ver Prize Win­ners
May 24th: Win­ners will be announced on Mon­day, May 24th, at the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit — The State of the Brain Fit­ness Market

Con­firmed Judges

• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Co-Founder of SharpBrains
• Baba Shiv, Pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford Busi­ness School
• Bill Tucker, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sector
• Brian Mur­phy, Pres­i­dent of De Anza College
• Charles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­ogy Pro­gram, MIT
• Chuck House, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Stan­ford Media X
• Colin Mil­ner, CEO of the Inter­na­tional Coun­cil on Active Aging
• Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, National Spokesper­son for Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion “Main­tain Your Brain”
• Glo­ria Cavanaugh, For­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging
• Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Director of UC-Santa Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Institute
• Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher at Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group
• Nigel Smith, AARP Strat­egy and Plan­ning Director
• P Murali Doraiswamy, Head of Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try at Duke University
• Rod Fal­con, Direc­tor of Health Hori­zons Pro­gram at the Insti­tute For The Future
• Stephen Mack­nik, Lab Direc­tor at Bar­row Neu­ro­log­i­cal Institute
• Susan Hoff­man, Direc­tor of OLLI @ Berkeley

May 24th Summit

2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Award Win­ners will be announced dur­ing the Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit on the State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket, to be held on Mon­day, May 24th, 2010, from 8am to 4pm US Pacific Time. Reg­is­tered atten­dees will receive an elec­tronic copy of Sharp­Brains’ annual report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2010, the most com­pre­hen­sive report on the cat­e­gory, to be released and dis­cussed dur­ing the Summit.

Sum­mit Agenda

8am. Bird’s-Eye View: Top Events, Indi­ca­tors, Trends

8.30am. Mar­ket Sur­vey on Beliefs, Atti­tudes, Pur­chase Habits
9am. Com­pet­i­tive Land­scape: Lead­ing Assess­ments and Train­ing Tools
9.30am. State-of-the-Art Research and Devel­op­ment
10am. Water­cooler Chat

10.30am. Con­sumer Data and Trends
11am. Health­care, Insur­ance, Senior Liv­ing Data and Trends
11.30am. Lunch Break

12.30pm. K12 Data and Trends
1pm. Mil­i­tary, Cor­po­rate, Sports Data and Trends
1.30pm. Future Direc­tions — Pro­jec­tions, Themes and Risks
2pm. Water­cooler Chat

2.30pm. 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards
3.30-4pm. Water­cooler Chat and Wrap-Up

Past Sum­mit attendees/annual report buy­ers include:  AARP, Aber­dare Ven­tures, Abing­ton Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal, Agility Group, Ale­gent Health, Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing, Aspyr Media, Bay­crest, BCM Tech­nolo­gies, Bel­mont Vil­lage, Bin­na­cle Cap­i­tal, BKIN Tech­nolo­gies, Bon Sec­ours New York Health Sys­tem, Brain Resource, Brook­dale Senior Liv­ing, Camp­bell Soup Com­pany, Care One, Chor­at­ech, Clin­ton Global Ini­tia­tive, Club One, CNS Vital Signs, Cogmed, Cog­ni­tive Media, CogState, CORE Health, Credit Suisse, Dakim, Easter Seals, EDGE Inno­va­tion Net­work, Eric­s­son, Ernst & Young, FDA, First Cur­rency R &D, Fit­Brains, Fonterra, Hap­pyNeu­ron, Insti­tute for Behav­ioral Health Infor­mat­ics, Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, Inter­na­tional Mas­ters Pub­lish­ers, Inver­ness Med­ical Inno­va­tions, John­son & John­son, John­son & John­son Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, Kaiser Per­ma­nente, LEAF, Learn­ingRx, Lumos Labs, Medi­s­olve, Merit Enter­tain­ment, Neu­ro­Care Net­work, Mind­ware Lab, Neu­roim­age, NovaV­i­sion, One Lap­top Per Child, Ontario Long Term Care Asso­ci­a­tion, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solu­tions, Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence Uni­ver­sity, Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes, Osmium Part­ners, Pfizer, Pied­mont Gar­dens, Posit Sci­ence, Proac­tive Aging, Proc­ter & Gam­ble, Sci­en­tific Learn­ing, Sov­er­eign Health, Sun Microsys­tems, Sun­rise Senior Liv­ing, Sut­ter Health, The Well­ness Alliance, Unilever, USAA, US Army Research Lab, Tech­nol­ogy Part­ners, vibrant­Brains, Vis­it­ing Angels, West­min­ster Communities.

You can Learn More about Inno­va­tion Awards and May 24th Sum­mit Here.