NeuroTechEDU
#mozsprint 2017 Interview Series
Sydney (@syswsi) co-founded NeuroTechX and is interested in bringing neurotech to the masses. I first met Sydney at our Working Open Workshop in Montreal where I got to see firsthand his interest in building local communities and making neurotechnology accessible to everyone. Sydney joined the most recent cohort of Mozilla Open Leaders where to bridges these interests in NeuroTechEDU.
I interviewed Sydney to learn more about NeuroTechEDU and how you can help June 1–2 at #mozsprint.
What is NeuroTechEDU?
NeuroTechEDU is an open source initiative that allows everyone to get involved in the process of building open educational content around neurotechnology including Brain Computer Interfaces, and Brain Stimulation. We have created a “peer to peer learning by doing” framework that allows anyone to build content that is reviewed by experts then shared publicly.
We assemble teams that will build each module of content. Each team consists of beginners who are eager to learn more about the field and experts who have multiple years of experience in Neuroscience or Biomedical engineering. We ask the beginners to build the content,then every 2 weeks, they get it reviewed by the experts who make suggestions on how to improve it. Once the content has been iterated on enough times we make it available to the public via Github pages so that the larger community can benefit from it.
We find that this systems works really well because novices who learn something for the first time are more conscious of some of the mistakes a beginner would make and are more careful in how they explain something. They also tend to use laymen terms instead of academic jargon.
Why did you start NeuroTechEDU?
NeuroTechEDU was the coming together of many different people within the NeuroTechX community. We decided to do this is because there was a need for an open source education platform since many people try to learn about neurotechnology, but quickly give up due to the high learning curve.
We believe that anyone can contribute to the field and we want more people to participate in its growth.
The other reason we decided to start NeuroTechEDU is because we noticed that a lot of the available material on the subject tends to be expensive and not centralized. It could cost you hundreds of dollars for acquiring all of the necessary textbooks to fully understand the field.
What problems have you run into while working on this project?
One of the main problems that I’m experiencing is working with volunteers in different time zones. This means that many people have to do calls at weird hours and it can be very tiring. For the future we will be more conscious of the geographic location of the teams.
What kind of skills do I need to help you?
You just need to be motivated! Our content building model allows for anyone contribute to the project. As long as you have an open mind to learning.
How can others join your project at #mozsprint 2017?
NeuroTechEDU is always looking for motivated volunteers who want to contribute to open education. If there is anyone interested in going through the content and ensure that the information is clear and easy to read, please go to our Github . We also need people who can improve our search functionality on the website. Specifically, we are looking with people who have javascript experience.Finally, we are looking for people to add more html templates which can be used to style the content. If you are comfortable with HTML/CSS, please reach out to us on our Slack
What meme or gif best represents your project?
Join us wherever you are June 1–2 at the Mozilla Global Sprint to work on NeuroTechEDU and many other projects! Join a diverse network of scientists, educators, artists, engineers and others in person and online to hack and build projects for a health Internet. Get your tickets now!
