Bill Aronson used to forget things: the names of people he met at conferences, where his car keys were, even important passwords and PIN numbers. He knew he should have a better memory regardless of his age, so he decided to do something about it.

Bill knew there would be plenty of other people with the same problem. His next step was to name this frustrating problem for what it was – ‘digitally induced dementia’ - and to develop exercises to help people reverse it. The process he created became a six-week memory training course which is currently running in Hobart, Tasmania.

The seventy business and community leaders who have enrolled in his course have only been working with Bill and his memory coaching techniques for four weeks but are already reporting significant improvement. Gaye Barlow, a Hobart entrepreneur says, “I consider myself to be a fairly normal, middle-aged (or a bit more) professional woman, aesthetic nurse, Mum and grandmother and I am really good at running a busy clinic, juggling life and, of course, multi-tasking. Life has been busy for me and I’ve found it increasingly more difficult to remember all the small things one needs to, on a day-to-day basis. So when I heard about this 6-week memory training course, even with a 7.15am start, I did not hesitate to enroll. Now we are two-thirds of the way through the course and I am simply more efficient now than I was four weeks ago.”

So what is Digital Dementia? Bill explains; “Digital dementia is the unintended consequence of transferring our memory to the Cloud. We no longer need to remember anything when we can Google it or ask Siri. The result is that we are losing our ability to remember people’s names, phone numbers, lists and where we put our keys. Memory is not something that we have; it is something that we do. By not using it, we are losing it!” As this is a potentially huge, ongoing, global problem, Bill decided to crowdfund the next stage of his journey with Pozible.com and host a memory training event for 200 people.

The Pozible campaign has been a great success, having reached its initial target in less than 48 hours. It is now continuing so that Bill can raise money to publish a book, titled ‘The Lost Art of How to Find Things’.

Bill’s Master Your Memory campaign is supported by Cullen Pope, the host of EATT* Magazine and Radio’s crowdfunding podcast. Bill pitched the project to Cullen while they were developing a training program together, and Cullen immediately realised the potential of what Bill and his team had been working on. Cullen says “this is a powerful and valuable toolkit, and is something that I, someone who is always busy, can see the need for.”

Cullen is also the host of Silicon Beach Radio podcast and Deputy Lead Organiser of Melbourne Silicon Beach (MSB), a community that enables people to be that awesome start-up founder, tech founder, coder, freelancer or whomever they want to be and has over 5,300 members.

So now you know why these two crowdfunders are working to combat digital dementia, how can you get involved? Take a look at Bill and Cullen’s Master Your Memory campaign on Pozible. The rewards range from a very approachable $25 to sponsoring the book for $4,995, so there is something for all budgets, personal and corporate.

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