2024 Augmentation Residency
Own your data, own your AI
The 2024 Augmentation Summer Residency is a 2-month hacker accelerator for top AI talent in Cambridge, MA to build the next personal AI interfaces for a safe and open future.
The cohort encompasses 12 top engineers and designers from 7 countries, including 1 YC and 5 other founders, early unicorn engineers, multi-award-winning researchers, and PhD and grad students from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Rome.
The Augmentation Residency provides a platform for product discovery and validation. Residents collaborate on projects that align with the Augmentation Lab's mission of building open systems that protect users from malicious intentions and exploitation, instead enhancing transparency and well-being.
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They also receive access to physical resources, potential co-founders, and a tailored educational program for living with AI in the 21st century.
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Final dates: 1 July - 31 August 2024, virtual pre-program starts 24 June
Location: Cambridge, MA
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Applications are closed. ​Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/46KxVDtr57
We are moving towards a future of human-machine symbiosis
Personalized AI can diagnose our diseases, increase our productivity, augment our relationships, and even make decisions for us. We need new physical interfaces that integrate AI seamlessly into our lives.
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But Personal AI is also a dangerous tool for censorship and control. An AI based on you can clone your voice, copy your writing style, and create ads and political content that know exactly what to target you with.
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The 2024 Augmentation Residency on Wearable AI & Personal Agents focuses on making AI context-aware, private, and open.
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All residents will have their own wearable to record conversations and build their own personal agents with.
Residency outputs
MVPs for products, papers, patents, designs, and digital content.
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Hardware products - with a particular push for open-source hardware; e.g., Raspberry Pi for wearable AI
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AI-based consumer software; e.g., deeply personal AI agents based on journal notes and text messages
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AI infrastructure software; e.g., modular building blocks for building local LLMs on embedded devices
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Data storage/ownership architectures; e.g., Interplanetary File System for personal data
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Integrated hardware-software AI wearables for specific applications; e.g., consumer AI wearables for people with learning disabilities
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Whitepapers; e.g., on creating collective intelligences from personal agents
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Technical learning
The Augmentation Residency will be supported by an educational framework for transdisciplinary, AI-centric learning and product development.
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Residents will learn about human-machine symbiosis, miniaturized electronics, local and open-source LLMs, multi-agent simulations, edge computing, and secure/decentralized data ownership mechanisms.
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Organizers
All team members are core members of the Augmentation Lab. They are transdisciplinary developers who have been building genAI apps, ML systems, robotics, wearables, and XR experiences for several years.
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x-disciplinary developer, writer, neuroscientist
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Graduate researcher & incoming Master's @MIT Media Lab
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Bioinformatics @ULeipzig
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Biomedical Sciences & Neuroscience @UCL
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Co-wrote a book on scale-ups
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Working on integrating biosignals into LLMs & AI wearables
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Transdisciplinary Engineer and Creative Rebel
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Incoming Master's @MIT Media Lab
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Design Technology @ Harvard
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BFA & professional dancer @Julliard
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Autodidact CS, mechanical engineering, public policy, futurist
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Hardware & software hacker, physicist, philosopher
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Physics & CS Senior @Harvard
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Former VP @Harvard Conflux Art-Tech
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Experiences at CERN & Harvard Nanoscale Optics Lab
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Working on Multiagent simulations & modeling perception mathematically
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Native hacker, building XR, robotics, personal Al
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Designing a special major in Human Augmentation @ Harvard College
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Dropped out to be the
CTO @ Vision Cycle, raised to-date $2.5M -
Co-founded the Harvard
AR/VR Developers Club -
Founded a phone repair company at 16, with over 2400 customers & 900 repairs
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Extraterrestrial bioengineering innovator
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Biomedical Engineering @ UoF
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Research in space biology, biocompatible microgels, implantables, and bioprinting organoids for COVID-19
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Passionate about space synthetic biology, extraterrestrial habitat development & sustainable space exploration
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Creative Neurotechnologist, Wearables Strategy Consultant
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Brain-Computer Interface Researcher @ MIT Media Lab
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Psychology & CS @ University of Toronto
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Working on biosensing wearables that improve cognitive health with thoughtful go-to-market strategies for consumer impact
2023 Augmentation Residency
Our previous residency was a 2.5-month long program for 8 creative technologists in San Francisco.
Following the residency, our participants have joined Apple, Entrepreneur First, MIT Media Lab, and innovative startups Osmo AI (giving AI smell) and Lorentz bio (neurocryopreservation R&D).
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A case study about the 2023 Augmentation Residency was presented at CHI 2024 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems).
FAQ
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Is this only for students? I wonder if I might be a bit further along in my career.
No, the residency is not only for students. We highly encourage applications by professionals of all ages. Eventually, we are looking for the most passionate, skillful, thoughtful, and likable hackers.
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Is this program neurotech-focused?
This year's summer residency centers around creating personal AI. While there is room for biosignal-informed personal AI, neurotech specifically is not the focus of this residency.