What if you could tap into your brain data without implanting a chip?  A startup called Cerego is looking to pick your brain with the power of visualization. The newest company to take on big data exited stealth today with a new web app that leverages visualization and memory science to accelerate the learning process of online students.

Cerego is pegged as a memory management tool, and certainly qualifies as such. It provides you with specific times to review certain pieces of data in order to maximum information absorption, and incorporates not only text but also audio and other visual means of conveying the learning process of your brain.

The startup has been around for a couple of years, building its technology in Japan where beta users for this type of learning tool are plentiful.  Combining lessons from such interrelated disciplines as neuroscience, applied learning and memory, and psychology, Cerego is introducing an entirely new path towards self-improvement.

“Where Cerego cut its chops is in semantic memory, and we patented the methodology for humans to improve memory,” explains Andrew Smith Lewis, cofounder and executive chairman of Cerego.  “We figured a way to digitize that and see an evolving profile of your memory on an item-by-item basis.  Our goal is to provide a true ROI for learning.”

It’s the platform behind the premise that’s really interesting. Cerego leverages self-optimizing algorithms that become more accurate with every interaction, much like the technology leveraged by Google and other content-driven services.   And since it’s only a publishing tool and not a content provider, the startup is opening itself up to a lot of future growth.

Cerego is from a new generation of startups that’s providing some very useful, niche applications for “big data.”  Turning that into a business, however, is another story, but Cerego’s not without a plan.  Lewis fully recognizes the potential for data market integration, with several initiatives across academia and beyond that could benefit from collaboration.

“This is one of the first data-driven models for memory,” Lewis says.  “There’s a lot of really good information about how memory works, but so much of that is walled off on the research side.  Very little ends up in the product side.

“What we’ve done is taken a lot of the research in how memory works, and productized it.  Our work has been standing on the shoulders of the giants of cognitive science and other fields, putting it in the cloud, and letting anyone use it.  Our target is the consumer–the user.  Not the publisher.”

Cerego is currently in private beta, but you can gain early access here.  Use the code “SiliconAngle.”  Better sooner than later though, we could only get our hands on 500 invites.

Big data and education seem to go hand in hand, especially in recent weeks.  While Cerego is leveraging analytics to help you learn better, 10gen is leveraging massively open online courses to train the geek crowd in NoSQL technologies.

Contributors: Maria Deutscher