TL;DR

[ Too Long Didn't Read ]

1. Runners High Group (RHG): Soft launching my all-in-one digital hub for runners, tailored to address individual needs and build community. Transitioning to a custom tech stack for more flexibility.
2. Academia: Diving deep into a study using Augmented Reality for neurorehabilitation. Focusing on the brain's integration hubs, I'm exploring how challenging AR tasks can enhance our brain's connectivity and overall well-being.

Preamble

This past month flew by, it's so crazy to think that a month ago was August and now it's nearly October. If you're not careful things can just fly by past you.

I started my Masters degree this fall and although on the schedule I don't have as many required mom

There have been a few particularly memorable moments this month that include going to orientations, drinking coffee, reading papers and gently being accustomed to a new position where I am responsible for creating a calculate space for new information to grow.

I've had two ideas in particular, the first being a new approach to my old business model: Creating an offer so good someone would feel silly saying no to it.

Runners High Group

In the past I would try to create separate parts of a single business idea: Running.

This idea was fragmented into form, training, nutrition, accountability, socializing, joy, mindfulness and effort.

This new approach to the business is to create a digital one stop shop for high quality solutions that require minimal effort from the user while having the biggest possible upside for them.

I thought long and hard about this and decided to settle on the following idea:

1. A hyper-specific set of solutions to running related pains and problems based on where you start. Answer a few questions and you will be guided to an answer that looks at your job, time on your feet, other exercises and the time you go to sleep so that we can better help a person find a solution to ankle pain that is just right.
2. A meeting place for runners to talk about their problems, share solutions and stay motivated together.
3. A free training plan creator that helps you create a running plan for a race anywhere from one month away to 6 months away. No more awkward running plans. If you stop because life happens simply run the plan maker and get back on your feet.
4. A running rehab solution that helps you become 20% faster in without changing your distances or spending any significant time doing anything other than running.
5. An application that keeps a runner accountable on their journey by bringing runners together in the real world in a manner that is safe, fun and inviting.

To do this I needed to overhaul my whole tech stack, I had to stop using WYSIWYG editors like Squarespace and opted for my own set of micro services.

I'm currently running multiple ghost and discourse instances with custom code.

I'm writing both the content and the code myself which is both fun and time intensive. Overall the future looks bright.

Realistically I am looking to finish my first version of the RHG (runnershigh.institute) website by early October and have all 15 solutions as per point 1 up and available.

From there I think I can push out an update for my iOS app by early November and start my influencer TikTok career by Halloween. This should let me introduce running and prevent injuries and reduce pain for the masses.

Long story short, Help people fix running problems without having them book an appointment with a specialist unless it's actually needed and get them back to running as soon as possible while make them run faster while breaking less of a sweat. Then make it even easier to get into the sport by creating intimate hyper local connection between people in their own neighbourhoods via sport.

Stop pain. Make it easier. Run faster. Solo into a shared journey.

Academia

As a beginning graduate student I am beginning to bring together my ideas for a study in a way that I think could leave a lasting impact on the world around me. The way I want to do that is to apply the principles of computational neuroscience to the aging health population by implementing a cutting edge technology based rehab intervention.

Here's what I think the idea is going to look like: A participant will be seen by me for 15-20 minutes a week for 6 weeks. During each 15 minute window they will need to do a difficult game like task in Augmented Reality. They would put on a headset and use a controller to move a 3d bird in the X,Y,Z fields until the bird is placed at its target. Although this task is simple by itself, the complexity and rehabilitation factor I believe will come when everything becomes reversed: when the controlled is moved forward the bird moves back, left is right and up becomes down.

This kind of reverse task would make things much harder.

During each of these sessions a FNIRS system would capture the patient's Dorso-Lateral Prefrontal Cortex while also gathering vision gaze data from the participant as well as the location of all in simulation objects as well as the user's controller movements.

The goal here is to take a lot of data. My theory here is that if I have this much time series data I would be able to do a few things, first, I will be able to actually train up Machine Learning models - since the biggest setback of a custom model is data I would rather have more rather than less.

Second. By taking this kind of data I can focus on training a variety of detections of dlpfc in regards to eye movements, concentration and task difficulty and so on.

Ultimately though the goal would be to analyze the data throughout the study to see if any particular part of the intervention was most impactful. I am hypothesizing based on a handful of half-finished books that since integration hubs touch essentially all the brain regions, participants who undergo a multi-sensory and difficult multi-spatial task would have a significant improvement in their psychological, physical and emotional baselines.

One thing I've taken away from the way that machine learning and computational neuroscience look at the brain is that the brain does nothing more than do large matrix multiplications to come to its conclusions. If this is the case then that could also mean that by increasing the "stress" on the integration hub could mean a flourishing of all the connected neuronal tracts.

So that's the gist.

My biggest and most urgent goal coming up is to complete a deep and thoughtful literature review.

Happy Tuesday,

Anthony Machula

Chief Humanity Officer

RHG