Ariel Garten 
Founder and Chief Evangelist Officer | Muse
Toronto, ON, CANADA
Global speaker, female tech founder, and expert in brain, neuroscience, psychotherapy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and women in business.
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Biography
Ariel Garten: neuroscientist, innovator, and entrepreneur whose driving purpose is to empower and help others understand how their brain works in order to overcome mental obstacles in order to live healthy, happy lives.
Ariel’s unique background has taken her from working in neuroscience research labs, to owning a fashion design label, to being the female founder and CEO of a silicon valley backed brain computer interface tech start-up, InteraXon, the technology that sparked the creation of Muse.
Muse, the brain sensing headband is the award-winning wearable technology that assists and trains meditation, that is used by hundreds of thousands of people, including Mayo Clinic and NASA, to track the brain and teach meditation.
Ariel’s invited to share her unique and empowering insights keynoting on stages across the world speaking about happiness, meditation, how the brain works, neuroscience, empowering women in business, or telling her own innovation story. Ariel is consistently giving her audiences the tools they need to help them become their best selves.
Ariel is also a frequent guest on podcasts and co-hosts the Untangle podcast, where she guides audiences on how an understanding of your brain and how it works can help improve your life.
SPEAKING EXPERIENCE
Dozens of keynotes, including Le Web Paris (keynote 4 times), CES (Keynote 4x), Ted.com, etc, World Economic Forum, etc.
MEDIA APPEARANCES
Over 1000 articles on Ariel and Muse, including CNN (3x), WSJ (3x), Forbes (2x), NYT, BBC, etc etc.
Industry Expertise (15)
VC and Private Equity
Mental Health Care
Health Care - Services
Fine Art
Apparel/Accessories
Consumer Goods
Research
Biotechnology
Health and Wellness
Women
Alternative Medicine
Corporate Training
Hardware (not computer)
Medical Equipment / Supplies / Distribution
Performing Arts
Areas of Expertise (21)
Neuroscience of Meditation
Brain Computer Interface
Start Up
Mindfulness
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)
Wearable computing
Mind / Body Relationship
Wellness
Mental Health
Psychotherapy
Neuroscience
Leadership
Meditation
Women in Business
Brain
Hardware
Wearable Devices
Brain Health
Mompreneurs
Design
Human Computer Interaction (Hci)
Affiliations (5)
- Co-Founder: InteraXon
- Advisor: Biomedical Zone
- Advisor: Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Industry Advisor: Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Innovation Advisor: Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)
Links (3)
Testimonials (2)
Denise Restauri, Forbes Media | Forbes
She’s closing the gap between science, art, technology and business.
Dean Ornish M.D., Renowned Author | Preventive Medicine Research Institute
In that spirit, Ms. Garten’s compassion and desire to help the world are palpable in all of her interactions which have manifested into real world action. She has a recognized record of extraordinary achievement and a proven track record of substantial leadership experience. Also, she has demonstrated a personal commitment to serve society at large through exceptional contributions. The tool she and her team have created, Muse, is bringing a crucial piece to the healthcare narrative and has significantly improved the lives of many. Muse is a powerful technology that empowers and enables a much larger group of people to meditate.
Media Appearances (8)
Can this brain-sensing headband give you serenity?
CNN
2014-08-04
Meet Ariel Garten: 35-year-old CEO of tech company InteraXon. The business has created a headband which monitors brain activity, called 'Muse. ' It claims to help reduce stress as the user focuses on their brain waves, which appear on a screen.
The High-Tech Headband That Can Make Your Stressed Brain Happy Again
Forbes
2014-06-04
Muse is wearable technology, but it doesn’t create mind-blowing experiences. Just the opposite. Muse is a brain sensing headband that measures how overwhelmed your brain is from everything life throws at it -- and it helps calm your mind and rid yourself of unproductive and unhealthy stress. This is just the beginning of what Muse can do. In the future, using this technology, you’ll be able to customize and control your home environment based on your brain state, turning sci-fi into reality.
A Beautiful Mind: Can Ariel Garten's Brain Wave Interface Improve Your Outlook On Life?
Popular Science
2014-07-14
In college, Ariel Garten started a clothing line that took its inspiration from neuroscience. She hooked people up to an electroencephalograph (EEG) to record their brain waves, then emblazoned T-shirts with the spiky patterns reflecting their mental activity. She also sewed skirts with 37 pockets, a reference to the number of different brain faculties described in the Victorian pseudoscience of phrenology, and filled them with bric-a-brac to represent the subconscious. At age 34, Garten is still making geek-chic designs—only now her creations can actually read people’s minds.
Meet The Woman Who Combined Neuroscience Tech And Mindfulness
Fast Company online
2015-03-05
Ariel Garten has turned a knack for connecting the dots between things that seem to have nothing in common into a successful startup.
Mind-controlled computing: Look, Ma, no hands
The Globe and Mail online
2014-10-07
InteraXon's Ariel Garten made a bet that existing EEG technology could be used for a sleek consumer device that has a myriad potential applications, from turning on lights to mental health. [...]
You need to see it to be it: Women in Tech helping women in tech
Financial Post online
2018-11-07
Ariel Garten, cofounder of InteraXon, the Toronto-based maker of Muse, a meditation headband controlled by brainwaves, got her start in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in 2002. She was working in a research lab that developed an early brain-interface system that allowed people to control technology with their minds. “I thought this is extraordinary. The world needs to know about this and maybe it’s commercializable.” [...]
Muse meditation device melds science and style for Toronto co-creator
Toronto Star online
2016-01-03
Ariel Garten doesn’t require any direction when a newspaper photographer visits her downtown office to shoot her picture. Garten is the 36-year-old Torontonian who co-founded InteraXon, which produces the Muse headband, a consumer device designed to help people meditate and attain a calmer headspace. During the photo session, Garten exudes confidence and poise, knowing how to position her face. She seems hyper-aware of her appearance and how she wants to be presented in public, perhaps a reflection of her background in fashion design. [...]
Can Toronto-based InterAxon's brain-sensing headband Muse help people relax?
Financial Post online
2015-04-14
“We’ve been working with EEG technology for a long time. Ariel Garten (founder and CEO) and Chris Aimone (co-founder and chief technical officer), have been working with it since about 2003: Art installations and giant concerts with multiple people controlling things – and Ariel was excited about this and sort of saw there was something magical about the technology. That’s when she got Chris and I together to take it [the technology] out of the lab and into the world,” said Trevor Coleman, one of Muse’s co-founders. [...]
Event Appearances (10)
What If Your Mind Can Be Read?
World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland
Keynote: Introduction to Muse Headset
Le Web Paris, France
Thought Controlled Computing is Here
TEDxSanDiego San Diego, United States
Keynote: The Secret Number is 49
Le Web Lisbon, Portugal
Ariel Garten: Know thyself, with a brain scanner
TEDxToronto Toronto, Canada
Use Your Mind to Pour a Beer
SxSW Austin, United States
Keynote: Thought Controlled Computing
Idea City Toronto, Canada
21st Century Neurotech: All Synapses are Firing
Digital Health Summit Las Vegas, United States
The Future of Neuroscience
Exponential Medicine San Diego, United States
Brain–Computer Interface: Present and Future
IEEE San Diego, United States
Sample Talks (2)
Doing the Impossible - One Entrepreneur's Journey
Ariel had a rather impossible dream – to control computers with your mind. Hear her story and glean lessons from her work in bringing this unparalleled product to life. From a tiny sci-fi startup with an impossible dream to a commercial success with a trailblazing piece of wearable technology available in North America’s largest electronics retailer.
Using Your Mind to Achieve Greatly
Leveraging her work in neuroscience and psychotherapy, Ariel helps people understand what blocks them from achieving their greatest success and offers the practical tools for overcoming those blockers and unleashing opportunity.
Style
Availability
- Keynote
- Moderator
- Panelist
- Workshop Leader
- Host/MC
- Corporate Training
Fees
Patents (5)
Systems and methods for collecting, analyzing, and sharing bio-signal and non-bio-signal data
US9983670B2
2018
System and method for enhanced training using a virtual reality environment and bio-signal data
US20160077547A1
2016
Articles (1)
Memory rescue and enhanced neurogenesis following electrical stimulation of the anterior thalamus in rats treated with corticosterone
Experimental NeurologyA.S. Garten et al.
2011 Deep brain stimulation has been investigated as a treatment for memory disturbance but its mechanisms remain elusive. We show that anterior thalamic nucleus (ATN) stimulation administered to corticosterone-treated rats one month prior to testing improved performance on a delayed non-matching to sample task and increased hippocampal neurogenesis. In contrast, no behavioral changes were observed in animals that were tested a few days after surgery. Results of this study suggests that the behavioral effects of ATN stimulation in corticosterone-treated animals was likely dependent on long-term plastic changes, including the development of newly borne dentate gyrus cells of sufficient functional maturity.
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