Title	MINDPONG
Brand	THE BRAIN TUMOUR CHARITY
Product/Service	THE WORLD'S FIRST MIND-CONTROLLED, CANCER-BEATING GAME.
Category	A01. Innovation
Entrant Company	M&C SAATCHI London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	M&C SAATCHI London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Elspeth Lynn	M&C Saatchi London	Executive Creative Director
Mark Goodwin	M&C Saatchi London	Creative Director
Grant Parker	M&C Saatchi London	Creative Director
Natalie Lennartsson	M&C Saatchi London	Art Director
Brittony Collins	M&C Saatchi London	Copywriter
Stephen Chan	M&C Saatchi London	Ios Developer
Tony Dong	M&C Saatchi London	Technical Lead
Cal Loftus	M&C Saatchi London	Senior Designer
Rupert Simonds/Gooding	M&C Saatchi London	Head Of Creative Services

The Brief

Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, yet it is the least researched area. The aim was to raise awareness of The Brain Tumour Charity using the power of the brain, by creating the world's first mind-controlled game – Mindpong. This 2-player game, based on the1970s classic Pong, is controlled by thought alone, using headsets with Electroencephalography (EEG) technology to read brainwaves. To move the bat up people had to concentrate and to move the bat down they had to relax. The game was played on the digital outdoor screen at Westfield, Shepherds Bush for a £1 donation.

Mindpong was created to help people realize the power of the mind to raise awareness of one of its biggest threats: brain cancer. Specifically developed to promote The Brain Tumor Charity, we took Mindwave technology away from the preserve of medical research into the games and entertainment sector. It worked like this: NeuroSky Mindwave API was used to read and pipe raw data to an iPad. This had a custom app that, firstly, read the raw data from the API and translated it to visuals on the device. Secondly it acted as an input device for the user. The data was further pushed to a laptop with a custom app built in flash to enable the actual game to be played. The technologies used in the stack are: Flash, Objective C (iOS), MindWave API. They are controlled by Adobe, Apple and NeuroSky respectively, however the code built on top of those platforms was controlled by our developers. The complexity of the project comes in two parts. The first is the ability to successfully tie everything together into a cohesive product. The second was the AI to compensate for the lack of consistency of the measurements coming from the headset: every brain is different and being able to adapt to each thought pattern on the fly was a challenge. The technology is at a Public Release stage.

• Launched at Westfield, London with over 400 players • It raised the largest amount of money from street collections in the history of the charity. • The game delivered an experience and created a buzz which resonated with shoppers • It directly led to the recruitment of volunteers for the charity. • PR coverage extended to over 17 million people, vastly increasing awareness of the charity. • It achieved a significant uplift on traffic to the charity’s website. - Since launch, Mindpong has appeared at Google IO, IPM digital disrupt and Nine worlds conference.