CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Atentiv Inc. has been formed to advance personalized digital learning tools to significantly improve attention, learning and other cognitive skills in children and adults. The company’s proprietary technology platform – the Atentiv™ System – enables users to easily harness their innate lifelong ability to naturally strengthen attention skills, to optimize cognitive skills as they age, and to maximize personal productivity and performance for months to years.
The Atentiv™ System employs multiple advances in neuroscience, neuropsychology, electroencephalography (EEG), gaming, pedagogy and information technologies. The System is personalized to each user with a non-invasive direct Brain-to-Computer Interface (BCI) technology that precisely calibrates a person’s unique attention levels via a novel EEG. The System then uses a highly engaging and adaptive 3D virtual game playable on any smart phone, tablet or personal computer to ‘feed-forward’ a personalized functional challenge to the user to pay attention to specific activities during game play.
The Atentiv™ System’s ability to naturally transform the brain for sustained periods with drug-free, practical and cost effective solutions provides immense global opportunities,” said Eric Gordon, Founder, CEO and President of Atentiv, Inc. “We believe the Atentiv™ System delivers the necessary efficacy, personalization, assured effectiveness and scalability desired by millions of individuals who seek to maximize their attention and learning skills.”
The inability to manage one’s cognitive learning skills, particularly attention and working memory, in school, work and at home affects tens of millions of people, including as many as 1 in 11 children and 1 in 20 adults, and leads to serious lifelong consequences and missed opportunities for these individuals. Today, national governments and school systems recognize that significant investment in human capital is necessary to effectively compete in a global economy. That investment begins in the school room with the framework to ensure that each student is ready for the challenges to excel and succeed with the appropriate learning skills. As recently reported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment (www.pisa.oecd.org/) among 34 countries, those country school systems with the highest scores (i.e., So. Korea, Singapore, Finland, China – Shanghai, Canada) primarily concentrated on the superior development of fundamental learning and innovation skills, including attention, working memory, critical thinking and decision making as vital outcomes. The US barely made the average score of the 34 countries for 2009.
"The Atentiv™ System is the only ready to use digital learning platform that objectively measures the user’s underlying neural correlates of attention skills and then uses those measures to manage the training and development of improved attention skills for sustained periods,” said Ranga Krishnan, MB, ChB, Dean for the Duke – National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School. “This breakthrough will enable highly practical brain-based assessments and training to monitor and enhance attention skills. I expect that the Atentiv™ System will become a standard tool in fields including education, defense, athletics and healthcare.”
John S. March, Director of Neurosciences Medicine, Duke Clinical Research Institute stated: “The Atentiv™ System Platform may be the most important advance in cognitive attention training in the current decade. It is likely to revolutionize the way we address the optimization of attention and other related cognitive skills."
The core BCI technology of the Atentiv™ System was developed by researchers at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R) in Singapore. Professor Lye Kin Mun, Executive Director of I2R said: “Our team recognized the challenges of optimizing learning skills and enhancing quality of life, and we developed a series of solutions that addresses some of these needs. The BCI is a good example of such a solution and we are proud of this achievement.” Atentiv signed an agreement with Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), the marketing and commercialization arm of A*STAR, to license the technology. Further research collaborations to continue product and school room development have also been executed with I2R and the Institute of Mental Health.
About the Atentiv™ System:
The Atentiv™ System is a novel, non pharmaceutical, digital learning and cognitive therapy platform that delivers sustained and measurable improvements in attention control and allocation skills for individuals. Using either a Mac or Windows-based client computer, tablet or mobile hand held device and a Bluetooth®-enabled headband, the Atentiv™ System leverages a proprietary, non-invasive direct brain-to-computer interface to measure a user’s unique ‘cognitive signature’ of cognitive skill functioning. A highly sensitive device in the headband captures and communicates brain wave activity from the user through the headband to the client and enables the client to present a series of skill targeted and progressively challenging brain exercises to develop significantly improved skill levels. Each game session relies on an adaptive training algorithm, which instantly adjusts the game’s difficulty to the user’s demonstrated skill abilities, effectively optimizing the challenge for maximum gain in sustained attention skill levels. Effective training may entail three 20 minute sessions per week and conclude in 8-10 weeks at home, school or work.
About Atentiv Incorporated:
Atentiv Inc. is a privately held company providing children, adults and educators with digital learning applications to optimize personal productivity through natural cognitive skill development. Based in Cambridge, MA, the company specializes in delivering personalized, non-pharmacologic, digital learning systems via the internet, computer software and electronic devices. Website: www.atentiv.com
About the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R):
The Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R pronounced as i-squared-r) is a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Established in 2002, I²R’s mission is to be the globally preferred source of innovations in `Interactive Secured Information, Content and Services Anytime Anywhere’ through research by passionate people dedicated to Singapore’s economic success. I²R performs R&D in information, communications and media (ICM) technologies to develop holistic solutions across the ICM value chain. Research capabilities are in information technology, wireless and optical communication networks, interactive and digital media; signal processing and computing. Website: www.i2r.a‐star.edu.sg A*STAR website: www.a-star.edu.sg