This article was taken from the June 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Itamar Lesuisse has better problem-solving skills and faster mental agility than most other entrepreneurs -- at least according to data from his brain-training app, Peak. The London startup was launched last September by Belgian-born Lesuisse and Sagi Shorrer, who previously worked as head of ad exchange at Google. By January it already had three million registered users and, it reports, five per cent of them have switched to the paid version.
Peak includes 24 games that test cognitive skills in five areas: problem solving, memory, language, mental agility and focus. "We call it a mental dashboard," says Lesuisse. "You can see what your cognitive strengths and weaknesses are, and you can start doing something about it. Over several months you can track your cognitive evolution. We believe every phone should have a brain tracker."
The games' concepts were taken from cognitive assessments available in scientific literature. (Barbara Sahakian, the professor who co-invented CANTAB, one of the most popular tests, is one of Peak's advisors.) "We start with the science and then we make a game out of it," says Shorrer. The results can be visualised and then compared against other users, by age, profession, country or education level.
The data also benefits science. Peak announced partnerships with C8, a company founded by Yale psychiatrist Bruce Wexler that develops programs for kids with ADHD, and Brainsway, an Israeli firm that develops treatments for illnesses such as depression. "These labs and companies create cognitive tools to assess very specific problems but have no access to users, says Shorrer. "We have the users and we can take their solutions to them. We want to democratise science."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
