In a world shaped by complexity, crisis, and compounding stressors, brain health has become a defining frontier for public health, economic resilience, and societal wellbeing.

The growing burden of cognitive decline - from chronic stress to neurodegenerative disease - is silently eroding the strength of our communities, our institutions, and our future.

The Brain Health Futures Summit brings together some of the world’s brightest minds in neuroscience, public policy, performance, workplace culture, and community design to explore how we build healthier brains - individually, collectively, and systemically.

If you work in health, design, government, innovation, education, or leadership - join us to help shape a brighter, more resilient cognitive future.

Part 1: The Cognitive Economy: Why Brain Capital Is the Next Frontier

In an era defined by complexity, crisis, and chronic overload, brain health is no longer a personal issue - it’s an economic imperative.

This opening session sets the stage with sharp insights from neuroscience, innovation, and public policy, unpacking the concept of brain capital and its implications for national resilience, productivity, and global competitiveness.

Discover how the public sector, scientists, inventors, designers and systems thinkers are reframing mental health as critical infrastructure, and why cognitive wellbeing is fast becoming both a defining measure of progress and a critical factor in resilience.

Part 3. The High-Functioning Human: Brain-Based Leadership for a Complex World

Leadership today demands more than decisiveness and vision - it requires cognitive clarity, emotional stamina, and deep self-awareness.

This final session focuses on brain-based leadership strategies for building resilient teams, preventing burnout, and making smarter decisions under pressure.

Hear from performance coaches, organisational psychologists, and executive leaders on how to lead not just with confidence, but with cognition.

Learn how brain science is reshaping what it means to be a high-functioning human in the future of work and self care.

Harris is a physician-scientist, entrepreneur, and strategic advisor who pioneered the brain economy transition, recognised as a $26 trillion economic opportunity. The brain economy strategy has now inspired the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) to convene a Brain Economy Action Forum.
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Harris is a senior fellow for brain health and society at Rice University's Office of Innovation, leads Neuro-Policy at the Baker Institute and is an adjunct with Rice's Neuro Engineering Initiative and Psychological Sciences. He is a visiting senior fellow at the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, a senior advisor with McKinsey and Company, advisor at MD Anderson's Cancer Neuroscience Program.

Bonnie is the convenor and host of the Brian Health Futures Summit. She is a Professor of Practice at RMIT University and leads a multi-modal program of works exploring the impacts of stress on cognition and behaviour in compounding crisis - where care for ourselves and each other can scaffold thoughtful and resilient responses to a rapidly changing world.

The Brain Health Futures Summit will convene a day of inspiration and exploration into the tensions and complexity of sustaining cognitive wellbeing in a rapidly changing world.

It will be a space for curiosity, collaboration, and courageous thinking—where neuroscientists, designers, health professionals, technologists, policymakers, community leaders, entrepreneurs, coaches and leadership professionals come together to share knowledge and challenge assumptions.

Produced by Bonnie Shaw - in her role as Professor of Practice at RMIT University - the Summit aims to convene diverse and divergent perspectives, skillsets, and lived experiences to unlock new insights into brain health.

Through this cross-disciplinary exchange, we’ll shape more inclusive, adaptive, and forward-thinking approaches to the design of environments, technologies, and systems that support individual and collective cognitive resilience and brain health.

9am -5pm Thursday 13 Nov 2025 - Capitol Theatre, Melbourne