This is personally gratifying for me, because it's also the culmination of a 15 year scientific arc that started during my 1st year of grad school @Princeton!https://twitter.com/SebastianSeung/status/1124376959029587969 …
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In 2004, I asked
@DOECSGF for graduate fellowship funding to do essentially the@IARPAnews#MICrONS program ALL BY MYSELF in 4 years. Miraculously, they gave me the award. (Spoiler alert: This was a huge failure.)Show this thread
I spent the next few years learning the hard way that achieving this set of goals would require 100's of people working over decades to solve. I also learned a lot about the key technical and logistical challenges on the path to success.
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It was so disappointing for me to "fail" at that first dissertation project. I honestly thought I was a failure for biting off far more than I could chew.
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As it turned out, that initial "failure" was vital preparation for my later role helping to architect and run the
@IARPAnews#MICrONS program.Show this thread -
This is N=1, but it's a case study that shows the long-term value of empowering students to try hard things and fail (spectacularly if necessary). Sometimes, the knowledge gained through failure turns out to be valuable for the future advancement of a scientific discipline.
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I should also mention that I don't take this scientific opportunity for granted. None of us should. All credit goes to
@IARPAnews,@RJVneurotech, and the#BRAIN Initiative for empowering the neuroscience community with the mandate and resources to succeed in this undertaking.Show this thread -
Today Phil Rubin was wistfully telling me the story of how he and Tom Kalil hatched the initial plan for the
#BRAIN Initiative at OSTP, and I'm not embarrassed to admit I tearfully thanked him for helping to make an entire generation of young neuroscientists feel empowered.Show this thread
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