On May 10-11, 2006, I chaired IBM’s Almaden Institute on Cognitive Computing.
The Institute examined scientific and technological issues around the quest to understand how the human brain works. And, examined approaches to understanding cognition that unify neurological, biological, psychological, mathematical, computational, and information-theoretic insights. We focussed on the search for global, top-down theories of cognition that are consistent with known bottom-up, neurobiological facts and serve to explain a broad range of observed cognitive phenomena. The ultimate goal, of course, is to understand how and when can we mechanize cognition.
The Institute featured prominent speakers and panelists: Nobelist Gerald Edelman, The Neurosciences Institute, Henry Markram, EPFL/BlueBrain, Robert Hecht-Nielsen, UCSD, Jeff Hawkins, Palm/Numenta, James Albus, NIST, Theodore Berger, USC, Kwabena Boahen, Stanford, Ralph Linsker, IBM, Jerry Swartz, The Swartz Foundation, V. S. Ramachandran, UCSD, John Searle, UC Berkeley, Joaquin Fuster, UCLA, Leslie Valiant, Harvard University, Toby Berger, University of Virginia, and Christof Koch, Caltech.
The Institute brought together over 165 attendees from over 57 different institutions:
UNIVERSITIES: Brandeis, CalTech, EPFL, George Mason, Harvard, SFSU, Stanford, Rockefeller, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC Merced, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, University of Massachusetts, University of Nevada, USC, University of Virginia, The Neurosciences Institute,
GOVERNMENT: Air Force, CIA, DARPA, NIST, NIH, ONR
INDUSTRY & GOV LABS: Allen Institute of Brain Science, Honda, Hitachi, House Ear Institute, Intel, JPL, LBNL, MSRI, Mitsubishi, PARC, Samsung, Santa Fe, SRI, Yahoo!
START-UPs/VENTURE CAPITALISTS: Draper Fisher Jurvetson, KPMG, Numenta, Posit Science, Security First Corp., Symbol Technologies, Sutter Hill Ventures, Technology Partners, The Intellisis Corporation
MEDIA: CNET, New York Times, Red Herring, San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Register, Wired
PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS: Kavli, Swartz
The videos and presentations from the Institute are now online: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/agenda.shtml