Charles River Analytics, Inc., developer of intelligent systems solutions, will host the prestigious IEEE Brain Data Bank Competition at its Cambridge headquarters on December 9, 2017. Competitors with expertise in computer science, data science, biology, and neuroscience, will come from academia, industry, and government to evaluate complex datasets. Judges will compare participants’ entries in three categories: data analysis, data visualization, and presentation/interpretation of findings. Winners will receive an IEEE-sponsored cash award.

“We’re excited to partner with the IEEE Brain Initiative to host this Boston-based competition,” said Dr. Seth Elkin-Frankston, a scientist at Charles River, and one of the organizers of the event. “The IEEE Brain Initiative has sponsored a fantastic series of competitions with the goal of bringing people together to explore various brain/neuro datasets.”

The challenge focuses on data collected from studies that investigate how to enhance human intelligence. Decision-makers are often faced with complex problems, such as climate change, globalization, diplomatic relations, and financial market crises. To tackle these complex issues, we must enhance our fluid intelligence—our fundamental human ability to detect patterns, reason, and learn. Many researchers believe that effectively “exercising” our minds makes us smarter.

The datasets will be provided by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from the Strengthening Human Adaptive Reasoning and Problem-Solving (SHARP) program. This effort, funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, tested whether interventions could successfully enhance fluid intelligence. Charles River led a team of top researchers under SHARP and developed a training program to improve adaptive reasoning and problem solving.