Andrew Smith Lewis

Activist, Brainstormer, Change Agent, Idea generator, Photographer, Social entrepreneur, Technologist

I have a 20-year track record of successfully building and growing education and technology businesses in Japan. As co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Cerego LLC, I focus on new product planning as well as business development and most recently leading our efforts in the US to launch the world's first memory management platform. I lead Cerego's R&D efforts as well as being the primary architect of its core learning products. I am one of the original co-inventors of the Cerego Learning Methodology and have several patents in my name. My first book in Japanese, "Learn Faster, Remember Longer", Nikkei BP 2002, became an immediate best-seller. In the Fall 2008, I presented at DEMO and won a DEMOGod award: http://www.demo.com/demonstrators/demo2008fall/147320.html I founded The Princeton Review of Japan (TPRJ) in 1989 at the age of twenty-one. I grew the company from scratch to the market leader in its category. I studied at the Bronx High School of Science, where I became a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Semi-Finalist. I later graduated from the University of Virginia in 1989. I am 40 years old, have lived in Japan for approximately 20 years, and speak Japanese with near fluency.

Advances in science combined with the social web can radically improve learning. Distributed and collaborative learning is the future of education. Learning should be open to everyone.

Scientists have discovered a great deal about the inner workings of learning and memory, but most of this knowledge is buried away in scientific journals, rarely seeing the light of day. Our mission at Cerego is to combine proven learning principles with web technology to improve the way people learn. Working with a team of researchers, we've assembled numerous principles from the fields of neuroscience- the biology of learning and memory, and cognitive science- the psychology of learning and memory and incorporated them into our platform, that helps people learn faster and remember longer. For the last several years, Cerego has been focused primarily on teaching English to users based in Japan, offering its service to over 1,000,000 learners via the web. At present, we are expanding to cover any fact-based content from astronomy to art history, and current offer users the ability to create and share content with the world.

Japanese Culture, Learning Sciences, Social Web

I have been a fan of TED for many years and have a dream of one day presenting our learning platform at TED. In the interim, I would love to attend and participate in one of the most interesting and important events of our time. My company recently supported the TEDxTokyo event and I got glimpse at the talent and passion of both the presenters and participants. I have several TEDster friends including Joi Ito, Patrick Newell, Jim Margraff, Daphne Kis, and Aydin Senkut and would love to have the chance to experience what they have firsthand at TED.

car racing, Judo, yoga