BrainWare Learning Company
Learning is about everything from reading, writing, and math, to nuclear physics, medicine, and literature. But how does learning actually take place?
We don’t often think about the basic processes our brains use to learn. Those processes, called cognitive skills, are the foundation for learning. Cognitive skills are how our brain takes in information from the outside world and processes it, stores it, retrieves it, organizes it, and comprehends and applies it. Skills like attention, memory, visual and auditory processing speed, and the way our brains hold on to information while we think about it. This is what happens during the learning process.
While individual cognitive skills can be stronger or weaker, it is the way all these capacities integrate, flow, and work together that makes up our overall intelligence. Executive Functions play a vital role in the integration. They are how our brains organize the interplay of all the mental processes toward goal-directed, purposeful behavior. And like all cognitive skills, Executive Functions play a role in learning and just about everything we do in our lives.
One of the most important things to understand about Executive Functions is that they are essential in reading, math, and other academic subjects, as well as in building social and emotional competence. In other words, Working Memory is the same mental process whether we are using it to comprehend what we are reading, to solve a complex math problem, or to consider what someone else is saying and what might be causing them to say it.
We all have cognitive strengths. We all have cognitive weaknesses. In order to help people learn more efficiently and effectively, making the learning process easier for the learner, we need to understand each learner’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses. This is where BrainWare Learning Company comes in and establishes itself as both the pioneer and the leader in its field.
Their solutions are unmatched and ahead of their time. Also, their dedication to helping parents, teachers, workforce trainers – everyone who cares about learners — is unrivaled and exceptional. They truly are one of the most respected and sought-after companies, more than deserving to be the Most Innovative Gaming Tech Solution Provider to Watch in 2021!
The Company
BrainWare® is a learning company, establishing itself around cognitive assessment and cognitive training. Did you know that 50 percent of the variability in learning outcomes is driven by your cognitive profile? What that means is that the BrainWare Learning Company can impact the skills that account for half – 50 percent of the factors that predict your learning performance. Seriously!
They built a program that is considered the world’s most researched, comprehensive, integrated cognitive skill development tool delivered online today with demonstrated sustainability and transfer. They have placed this advanced solution into a digital cloud environment, making it fun, interactive, and engaging. With propagation via the Internet, they can now offer these services at a reasonable price point, so distribution can reach a critical mass. They make the solution available for families, schools, students and the workforce.
BrainWare Learning Company’s cognitive training program, BrainWare SAFARI®, offers a solution that empowers learners to take greater control of their opportunities, and create a life of greater choices, hope, and better understanding which can lead to happiness and a better life. They want you to understand and appreciate the joys of learning and, in this process, empower you with direct control of 50 percent of what accounts for learning outcomes.
“The Big Lie: Intelligence is fixed and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Roger Stark, CEO, BrainWare Learning Company
It’s the comprehensive integrated architecture that they use which makes them effective and efficient. Because the brain is an integrated system, if you want significant physiological change in the brain, in a short time with demonstrated sustainability and transfer, you have to work the brain the way the brain was built to work. That’s highly comprehensive and highly integrated.
BrainWare Learning Company’s mission is to enhance an individual’s ability to assimilate, process, comprehend and apply information as effectively and as efficiently as possible. And even though they believe we have some great teachers, unfortunately, most teachers have not been trained on the cognitive learning process. But that is also an opportunity. We can empower teachers to help children (and adults) who learn differently. We can help teachers to personally take responsibility for impacting and developing what accounts for 50 percent of each child’s learning success.
The inception of BrainWare Learning Company, and the journey so far
Roger Stark, Founder and CEO, and Betsy Hill, COO, and President of BrainWare Learning Company have always looked for opportunities where they can give back to people and help them in any way possible. They wanted to provide something that would change the way the world looks at things. And in this search, a lot of ideas came to Roger’s desk. One day, a couple of doctors walked into his office and asked, “What do you know about the brain?”
One conversation led to another, and those doctors debunked the myths that have been perpetuated about the brain. For example, all men are smarter than women, in math, not true. Women may think that they’re not as innately as good at math, but only because they’ve been told that for hundreds of years; actually, they’re just as smart and just as capable. Another myth – some people are born stupid, others are smart, and there is nothing that can be done to change that. The doctors said they could disprove this scientifically, and that is the moment Roger was hooked and knew this would be the revolution he would bring to the world!
“When we think about the fact that people learn differently, and that seven out of ten of our children perform below grade level proficiency, it’s hard to pinpoint what a ‘normal learner’ is. I’m not sure what normal is, because we’ve got more non-normal learners than ‘normal learners.’ This fascinated me, and the plasticity of the brain and how they could change the brain and people.”
Roger Stark, CEO, BrainWare Learning Company
At the time of that initial conversation with the doctors, they introduced Roger to the clinical procedures that were being administered around the country. He sent teams out to explore and everybody that looked at and observed these sessions, came back with the same response: This is pretty amazing stuff!
Despite the success of these clinical procedures, Roger was not satisfied. The sessions were one-on-one with a highly trained clinician. He wanted everyone to be able to have this kind of training. He started a journey to lower the price point, so more people can have a greater opportunity to access this powerful program that builds intelligence.
The first challenge for the BrainWare Learning Company was to have a solid plan and model. At this point, their service wasn’t a business yet, just an idea. It needed to be a multidisciplinary approach and they had to get expert personnel on board right from the beginning such as speech and language pathologists, clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, vision specialists, developmental auditory specialists, neurologists, and more, all of the disciplines that work with the brain. After that came heated conversations, conflicts, and many late-night discussions. And then came the video-game developers.
Video-game developers are cut from a different cloth; to have sync and get understanding among doctors, scientists and game developers was an amazing accomplishment. The BrainWare Learning Company team’s unwavering spirit and desire to help people made this possible and led to the creation of BrainWare SAFARI, the world’s most researched, comprehensive, integrated cognitive skill development system delivered online.
The challenges on the education side of the BrainWare program were equally daunting and extensive. The field of education is very complicated, involving a lot of decision-makers and a lot of moving parts. Their journey began when the original version of BrainWare SAFARI 1.0 was in its Beta release.
There was a study that recruited students from elementary to middle school age, and these students were assigned to either one of two groups, a study group or a control group, –the first would use BrainWare SAFARI and the second would not. To study the effects on cognitive ability and academic performance, a nationally normed cognitive test (the Woodcock-Johnson Cognitive Battery) was administered before and again after 12 weeks. In addition to the cognitive battery, some of the Woodcock-Johnson achievement tests were also used to gauge the transfer to academic performance.
The results were staggering. The BrainWare SAFARI group increased their academic abilities by almost 2 years (1 year, and 11 months on average) while the control group improved by just 1 month. Over the course of those 12 weeks, the difference in cognitive gains was even more dramatic – over 4 years of cognitive growth for the BrainWare Learning Company, compared to just 4 months for the control group.
As the BrainWare Learning Company team started to reach out to schools, finding institutions and educators with the intellectual curiosity, who were willing to participate and understand the importance of the BrainWare system for the learning curve of a child, helping students and teachers become better, smarter, and more understanding versions of themselves, was not an easy feat.
Not an easy feat, but looking at the transformations these kids went through allowed the BrainWare team to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program in the real world. And there was no turning back. Today, BrainWare Learning Company is one of the foremost names when it comes to providing exceptional and unmatched cognitive solutions.
Why BrainWare Learning Company? Why now?
Let’s look at the facts. Schools, especially in the US, spend less than 5 percent of their budget on what drives 50 percent of a student’s learning outcomes. This is not the case with all schools, but in most schools, educators are more inclined towards teaching rather than facilitating learning.
Do not be surprised if teachers don’t want to be held accountable for your child’s learning; they simply don’t have the resources to support and care for children who learn differently.
Not convinced yet?
According to statistics, 7 out of 10 students in school cannot read and comprehend at grade level proficiency. 25 percent of high-school graduating seniors today cannot read and comprehend their own diplomas. Over a third of first-year college students need remedial reading, writing, or math classes. 40 percent of college freshmen today do not have the ability to read, comprehend, and apply the complex text.
The BrainWare Learning Company’s system helps you, as a parent, a teacher, or a learning specialist, understand a child’s brain and learning process in an effective and precise way. Everyone is unique and has a different way and level of learning.
Also, the BrainWare Learning Company’s system is not limited to children. Cognitive skills are the components that drive intelligence in individuals of all ages. Our workforce needs help as well. Organizations need to work more diligently and have a better experience with being able to hire people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. Equity requires providing an individual with the ability to think, reason, and problem-solve. With BrainWare programs, a workforce can achieve just that, and the benefits to the company are limitless.
“You are the CEO of YOU Inc. If you want different, you can have different, but you must do different! You got this, You can make this happen. All you have to do is want to do it and be willing to put forth the effort.”
Roger Stark, CEO, BrainWare Learning Company
BrainWare Learning Company: what makes them different, and what sets them apart
The challenge that parents and teachers face is that the educational system is not equipped to deal with children who learn differently. BrainWare Learning Company guides them through to the best of their experiences, ensuring ways to optimize transformational learning experiences with the child. And they empower each parent and teacher to do that.
First, they carefully assess a child’s learning capacity, cognitive strengths, and weaknesses that support or impede the capacity of a child to learn. Second, they empower their clients with a neuroeducator guide and a coach that works with them for 12 weeks, so they feel empowered and know they are never alone. BrainWare Learning Company empowers them with a “GPS for Learning” that brings enormous clarity to parents when they see that first assessment. And this neuroeducator guide along with the BrainWare Learning Company’s Cognitive Master Coach works with the learner every step of the way, showing them where they are, where they need to go, and how to get there.
Learning skills or cognitive skills are like a puzzle and can seem very difficult. It’s like an onion and with every layer you peel, a new unknown becomes known. So, the BrainWare Learning Company team meets each child where they are developmentally, always making sure they’re explaining their client’s progress and developments, earning their trust and respect through the process.
What sets them apart is the comprehensive integrated architecture that they use to build cognitive infrastructure with demonstrated sustainability and transfer. Sustainability is the key.
Roger Stark was thrilled when he and his team were invited to the United States Congress to provide a joint congressional briefing on neuroscience and education. Why? Because they have done some pretty remarkable things that no one’s ever done before.
There are a lot of things that set the BrainWare Learning Company’s team apart, but central is their ability to unpack the learning and teaching process in a very systematic and affordable way. This empowers the parent or teacher and the coach to be far more effective in every step of the process, applying the most effective cognitive training techniques and personalized learning strategies to support each student.
Changing times and changing trends
The number one priority for BrainWare Learning Company is understanding their clients - what they want, what problems they face, and what they are looking for, addressing the root cause, not the symptoms. The team is particularly sensitive to the markets it serves and makes sure that they have great empathy. Most of the children they work with have become discouraged by their learning experiences in school. They often have low self-esteem. Their parents are confused and unsure.
It takes an exhaustive team of experts in all fields related to the brain, pooling their knowledge and resources together to create solutions that help increase cognitive abilities and lower the stress levels for the entire family.
The Leadership at BrainWare Learning Company
“What’s the force about? If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can’t, you can’t. May the force be with you!”
Roger Stark, CEO BrainWare Learning Company
Roger Stark has been a formidable and visionary leader, working towards fostering a broader understanding of the very concept of learning. Not only is he a charismatic person determined to change the world, but also a dedicated entrepreneur, working with educators, doctors, scientists, and game developers, and creating teams with coordination that is unwavering and services that are a revolution in the world.
“It’s been a perfect plan. I have planned this since I was six years old, exactly how I planned it, just like every other human being, right? (This is a joke!)”
Roger Stark, CEO, BrainWare Learning Company
Alongside Roger is the COO, President, and Chief Neuroeducator of BrainWare Learning Company, Betsy Hill. With her expertise in teaching and related fields, she brings unique expertise in applying neuroscience to learning and teaching to the company. She is highly dedicated, always upholding the mission and goals of BrainWare Learning Company. She is nothing less than an exceptional leader, a teacher, a visionary, and a neuroeducator.
Betsy has a diverse background in both the corporate world and the world of education, from classroom teacher to university professor to business executive. Betsy holds a Master of Arts in Teaching as well as an MBA from the prestigious Northwestern University. She will also tell you that she learned as much from raising three boys as a single mother as from all her university education and corporate experience combined.
“All of that varied experience, understanding different industries, really helps when there’s not a roadmap, when you have to invent things and draw on experiences, and you can use previous experiences or industries as analogies because you’ve been there and you’ve worked there.”
Betsy Hill, COO, and President, BrainWare Learning Company
Roger’s path was a little different. His mother was a social activist, coming from a very difficult environment. She decided she wanted to take an active role for all the women that were being abused at factories around the country.
One part Norma Rae, one part Coal Miner’s Daughter, she told Roger, “Sometimes in life, you just have to stand up for what you believe in because if you don’t stand up, life will knock you down. You have to take a stand when something has meaning. This is who we are as a people. And we need to do everything we can to make sure we’re always trying to be the best we can be for ourselves and others.” This has remained close to Roger’s heart even to the present day. When someone is struggling or has a problem, Roger will always be there.
Both Roger and Betsy have dedicated their lives to helping others. With BrainWare Learning Company, they have the opportunity to touch millions of lives and know that every life is dramatically changed for the better.
“There’s nothing more rewarding and nothing more fulfilling than to be able to help a child and a family in need,” said Roger. “As long as I can do that, I will. I extend my time. I extend my money. I extend my effort each and every day, just trying to be the best Roger Stark I can be.”
Before BrainWare Learning Company, Roger ran international corporations with offices spread around the globe. He ran offices in China, Switzerland, France, England, Latin America, San Francisco, Dallas, Las Vegas, New York and Chicago. He has led hundreds of members of his team to do different things, but nothing matches the work he does now, helping our most treasured assets, those that learn differently, and providing them with a life of hope, opportunity, and choice.
“God did not make any junk, and I assure you he did not start with your child.”
Roger Stark, CEO, BrainWare Learning Company
Roger and Betsy’s take on the competition in the market and how they deal with it?
“People do what they do. I’m very familiar with everybody that’s doing something in this space. I think we have some unique components ourselves. I like to be aware of what the competition is doing but I don’t look at them as much as I look at science. I’m always looking at neuroscience, looking at cognitive science, all the different disciplines that work with the brain. I’m more in tune with the latest technology than the people,” Roger adds.
“We have so much opportunity in front of us that we like to focus on what we’re about and building the best company we can build. We know what the data says around the world on how people develop,” said Roger. “What we do in 12 weeks is nothing short of remarkable; most companies want six months or more. We like to focus on what we do well and make sure that ethics is the engine, integrity is the driver. As long as we have ethics and integrity, we want to continue to drive it. We’ve not seen anybody that can drive faster or greater results in a shorter period for less money than us.
“If you’re concerned about being in a market that’s competitive, just try being in a market where there is no competition. Because when you have no competition, then your only competition is inertia. It’s much easier to sell in a market where there is competition because then there’s a category of things that people are looking for and you can differentiate yourself. And you can create value as compared to something else,” said Betsy. “It’s much harder when there is no competition.” “That is why we believe BrainWare Learning Company is in a league of its own. We are competing against ourselves and our own benchmarks,” said Roger. “And the sky’s the limit!”
