Brian Murphy

What makes Brian Murphy a Global Shaker?

Dr. Brian Murphy, a former assistant professor and university lecturer, made his foray into the AI world by creating a “Fitbit for the brain” through his company, BrainWaveBank. BrainWaveBank is a health tech start-up intending to build a neuroscience platform by applying machine learning to the science of our thoughts. Through employing First Derivatives KX database technology, the company seeks to create the world’s largest collection of electroencephalogram (EEG) data.

“We wanted to see if we could produce an EEG headset for under $100, to start collecting more data from more people,” he explained in an interview with Silicon Republic. “Brain data is traditionally noisy and expensive to collect. The more data we have, the more we know about the brain.”

The idea is to create a headset that can monitor brain activity and evaluate people’s cognitive health, all by playing mobile games for a few minutes a day. The data will be collected over time and combine machine learning and brain monitoring technologies to evaluate the changes in a person’s brain health. The technology could be used to identify abnormal brain activity that can be indicative of neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia.

BrainWaveBank secured £3 million in funding from investors as of January 2018.

Dr. Murphy has a varied academic history with a bachelor’s in aeronautical engineering from the Queen’s University of Belfast, as well as a master’s in speech and language processing and a PhD in computational and cognitive linguistics, both from Trinity College Dublin.

Last updated: April 11, 2019

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