Tag: television

John Elder Robison, Lavin speaker and author of Look Me in the Eye, was recently profiled on an episode of Science Channel’s Ingenious Minds – a show that explores the lives of savants. Robison was born with Asperger’s syndrome (but wasn’t diagnosed until age forty), a type of autism that is characterized by an extreme lack of social skills coupled with intense talent in narrow interests. For Robison, his interest has always been in electronics and engineering, so much so that he has become a highly skilled electrical engineer without even finishing his high school education.

This deeply personal look into Robison’s life profiles his extraordinary professional journey – he’s built guitars for KISS, games for Milton Bradley, equipment for nuclear test facilities and currently runs a successful custom car shop – all leading up to his mid-life realization that his peculiar social issues and immense technical talent were a result of Asperger’s syndrome. The show then moves into the work Robison and Harvard scientists are doing to try and treat Aspergers by using magnetic stimulation to the brain, in the hopes of improving the natural social abilities of those with Asperger’s. A fascinating look into the personal effects of Asperger’s, Robison’s story is as inspiring as it is touching. Watch the full episode, in two parts, below:

Read more about keynote speaker John Elder Robison

World renowned trend hunter and innovation speaker Jeremy Gutsche is now a judge on BNN’s new show, The Pitch, which gives two aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to the panel, who in turn give the entrepreneurs the advice they need to become successful. (Jeremy’s many speaking commitments keeps him from being a full time panelist, but he’s on as often as his schedule allows.)

From BNN’s The Pitch:

During the program, start-up entrepreneurs or companies seeking to take their business to the next level will sell their business idea – and the amount of cash needed – to a panel of tough financiers and experts.  The panelists will either give the pitch the green light or send the dreamers back to the drawing board. And it’s 100% live, giving viewers a chance to see how the entrepreneurs perform in a high-pressure atmosphere.

At Trendhunter.com, Gutsche and his team sift through hundreds of ideas and trends a day, posting the best ones on their influential website, which receives an astonishing 35,000,000 views a month, making it the largest trendhunting and innovation community in the world.

You can watch Jeremy Gutsche on The Pitch Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. ET on BNN.

Read more about keynote speaker Jeremy Gutsche

Author, mechanic, designer, photographer, speaker — these are just a few words that could describe John Elder Robison. The Look Me in the Eye author runs a multi-million dollar car specialty shop and a successful photography business. He’s designed guitars for KISS and toys for Milton Bradley. Oh, and by the way, he’s done all of this with Asperger’s Syndrome. Robison will be profiled on Science Discovery’s Ingenious Minds on February 24th at 8pm E/P. The show will document his work with Harvard researches on trying to improve his social cognition and empathy by speeding up or slowing down areas of Robison’s brain. As a spokesperson for Asperger’s and other forms of autism, Robison hopes that his partnership with Harvard will help researchers better understand Asperger’s and its effects on the brain, and eventually lead to treatments that can help those with Asperger’s better deal with the often misunderstood condition.

Read more about keynote speaker John Elder Robison

Neuroscience speaker David Eagleman — who released his latest book, Why the Net Matters, as an iPad-only app — will be featured on PBS’s venerable science show NOVA on February 2, 2011. An acclaimed neuroscientist, David has found inventive ways of studying brain functions, such as throwing test subjects (himself included) 100 feet into freefall. Set your TiVos now!

From NOVA:

How does the brain construct reality using the information it takes in? Neuroscientist David Eagleman is using a unique brand of “guerilla science” to study time perception—dropping people 100 feet into a net—and synesthesia, a bizarre crossing of the senses in the brain.

Read more about keynote speaker David Eagleman