NEW YORK—Experts in digital medicine, neuroscience, wearable technology and retailing have joined the roster of speakers at Vision Monday’s 10th annual Global Leadership Summit, VM announced today.

The day-long conference, one of the most anticipated events in the eyewear and optical industry for senior level executives, will take place April 13, 2016 at The Times Center in New York. Keying off the theme, “BrainStorm,” the Summit’s program will explore emerging technologies in commerce, health care, data and social interaction as well as implications for retail due to new research into human and computer intelligence.

This melding of human minds and technology is unlocking creative solutions for both consumers and businesses. The Summit speakers will share the imaginative approaches being taken toward the social, customer and patient experience. They’ll bring insights into how decision makers and their teams can get into the right mindset for such compelling new trends.


The initial roster of Summit speakers consists of four leading thinkers in their respective fields.

Leslie Saxon, MD, is a professor of medicine, clinical scholar, at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California. Dr. Saxon specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac arrhythmias and preventing sudden cardiac death. She is also the executive director of the internationally-acclaimed USC Center for Body Computing (CBC) and newly announced USC Virtual Care Clinic.

The CBC is currently a place for all USC schools including medicine, engineering, business and cinematic arts to form interdisciplinary relationships and accelerate the future of fully integrated, “connected” medicine. Dr. Saxon will address the mind-computer connection.

David Kepron, recently named vice president, global design strategies at Marriott International, is returning to the Summit for the second year in a row. His focus is on the creation of compelling customer experiences within a unique group of Marriott brands called the “Lifestyle Collection,” including Autograph, Renaissance and Moxy hotels. In 2014, STMedia Group International published Kepron’s first book: “Retail Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World.”

Jim Marggraff is founder, chairman and CEO of Eyefluence, a company that develops eye-interaction technology for augmented, virtual and mixed reality devices. Dedicated to developing innovative technologies that improve learning, communication and productivity, Marggraff has founded/co-founded several successful companies, including Livescribe (inventor of the smartpen), Explore Technologies, and StrataCom. Marggraff holds more than 36 patents/applications and was the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year, 2011.

Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, is professor in neurology, physiology and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, the founding director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center, and director of the Gazzaley Lab. His laboratory studies neural mechanisms of perception, attention and memory, with an emphasis on the impact of distraction and multitasking on these abilities.

Dr. Gazzaley’s most recent studies explore neuroplasticity and how we can optimize our cognitive abilities via engagement with custom-designed video games, and how this can be bolstered by closed loop systems using neurofeedback and Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES). He is co-founder and chief science advisor of Akili Interactive Labs, a company developing therapeutic video games. He advises a dozen other tech companies, including GE and Nielsen.

Dr. Gazzaley has filed multiple patents based in his research, authored over 100 scientific articles and delivered over 425 invited presentations around the world. His research and perspectives have been consistently profiled in high-impact media, such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Discover, Wired, PBS, NPR, CNN and NBC Nightly News.

He wrote and hosted the nationally televised, PBS special “The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley.” National Awards and honors for his research include the Pfizer/AFAR Innovations in Aging Award, the Ellison Foundation New Scholar Award in Aging and the Harold Brenner Pepinsky Early Career Award in Neurobehavioral Science.

The Premier Sponsors of the Vision Monday Global Leadership Summit are Essilor and VSP Global. The Signature Sponsors are ACEP/ABS Smart Mirror, Adlens and Luxottica. The Supporting Sponsors are Alcon, CareCredit and The Vision Council.

Click here to register for the Summit.