About

Companies – not labs or nonprofits – are the only entities that can translate core neurotechnologies into useful products at scale to benefit millions and eventually billions of people. Success, however, is not assured given the complex set of hurdles that must be overcome to yield viable businesses. Clinical success alone – itself a challenging outcome – is insufficient to deliver impact for the world at large. Rather, technologies need to break out into the consumer setting and be embraced as tools that can lead to human flourishing.

The rationale for the Protocol Labs Neuro Founders Retreat, “Roadmapping the Neurotech Commons”, is that, for the field as a whole to succeed, we must: (1) unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in capital that is not beholden to the short timelines of venture fund cycles; (2) smooth the path to clinical revenue by facilitating regulatory approval and payor acceptance while maintaining patient safety as an unassailable first priority; (3) support a transition plan to consumer products through long-term R&D even during periods of clinical product focus; and (4) prepare the public so that a future with ubiquitous neurotech is viewed as utopio-, rather than dystopio-, genic. 

What to expect:

This is a retreat, not a conference. Thus, we will reserve ample time for interactions to help the neurotech founder attendees deepen relationships and build community. In addition to relationship building, there will be four working sessions, each comprising short introductory framing remarks followed by breakout discussions to workshop the pre-distributed roadmap drafts. The goal of these sessions is to define steps for Protocol Labs in particular – and others in the field more generally – to take to support the neurotech commons.

There are no required presentations unless previously arranged.

Before the retreat:

We ask all participants to read the Program and Attendee document in advance. It provides greater depth on the retreat’s activities and their rationale.