Ariel Garten (@ariel_garten) is the Founder of InteraXon, makers of Muse: the brain sensing headband. Muse is the award-winning headband that makes meditation easier. During guided exercises, Muse senses your brain activity and sends that information to your phone or tablet, giving you real time audio feedback… Ariel has researched at the Krembil Neuroscience Institute studying hippocampal neurogenesis, displayed work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, DeLeon White Gallery and opened Toronto Fashion Week. The intersections of these diverse interests have culminated into various lectures with topics such as “The Neuroscience of Aesthetics” and “The Neuroscience of Conflict”, featured on TVO’s Big Ideas. Referred to as the “Brain Guru”, Garten has also run a successful real estate business, spent time as the designer of a Canadian fashion boutique, and is a practicing psychotherapist. Garten regularly lectures at MIT, Singularity University and FutureMed. Her lecture on Ted.com has over 400k views and she gave this year’s opening keynote at Le Web (plus numerous times previously), Europe’s biggest tech conference.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- The science of meditation and how it affects your brain
- Why Ariel is passionate about neuroscience and its ability to evolve our species
- How IoT and technical enhancements will shape humans of the future
- The mental health problem we’re facing and how to overcome it
- Why elite performers tend to be meditators
- The ways to consciously control and hack your brain
- How technological innovation will impact our evolution
- What brain scientists are just starting to understand
- The reason capitalist incentive structures drive many of our most pressing problems
- What is really the future for wearables