 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, a show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Catherine Noor. Today our topic is improving eSports performance. My guest is Dr. Christian Kuzmich, the CEO of Mindset Technologies, joining us from Austria. Welcome, Christian. Hello, Catherine. Very happy to be here on the island on safety, as I heard before, no COVID on Hawaii, so I feel most confident here and pretty safe. Thanks for the invitation. All right. So you know what? Let's zoom in on the photo of where you are, because I'm sure that I don't want everyone to have to Google it. Is that where you are? Exactly. So we are in the middle of the heart of Europe. We're in Austria, near Vienna. So for many tourists coming from the States, worldwide actually, Austria definitely is a trip. And yeah, we are near Vienna actually, very near to Vienna, but we work internationally. We work globally. And for instance, we, as we can see in the next slide, we have one partnership with a Korean company. We work together in a research proposal where we want to find out, first of all, the best training methods for eSports athletes and also provide something like a biofeedback method, similar to a pulse watch. So if you have a look later on at our homepage, it's called the pulse watch of the brain. And this is what it actually should be, what we provide them and put together. So we are pretty international, but we are located in the heart of Europe. Also have a co-founder sitting in Switzerland. So we are somewhere in the Alpine region and then work from there. Terrific. And so what is Mindset Technologies? Is that your company? Yes, exactly. Mindset Technologies is our company. We are two co-founders and we have a team of three people collaborating with us, Machine Vision Lead, AI Lead, and CTO. And what we do is we predict the tension. And one of the most interesting areas where you can predict the tension is in the high performance area, which is eSports or racing or sports that put a lot of demand on the person, a lot of stress on the person. Like for instance, soccer. So for the goalkeeper, it's a huge stress. And so we are working with goalkeepers as well with a similar methodology like in eSports. So do you work with the players or the teams in terms of trying to help them improve their performance? Exactly. We work with both because we specialize in getting the best signal, which is hard enough in the field to get the best signal. That says, okay, there is somebody who's getting tired. And getting tired means a lot of things in the area of performance because when you're very fast with the keyboard and the mouse, speed might go down. For some persons, the speed might go up, but the accuracy might go down. That means the speed accuracy per se is very interesting to have a look at. And the thing is, with our approach, we always need to have a mediator to the team, which is the trainer. So we work together with trainers. We have, for instance, one method where we put, and I have the goggles here, where we put those gaze measuring and monitoring goggles on players. And we can see in life, whether player is looking at the Negro shooter or League of Legends, whatever it is, we can see in life where the player looks at, where the gaze is, if there is a centering of the gaze. That means if the player is standing in the right place. And in the post-processing, we can put that together with psychophysiological signals, indicating fatigue, alertness, being in the right zone, having the right mindset point, all those things that enable you to perform better. So are you a neuroscientist? Is that what your PhD is in? What's your background? Yeah, exactly. So I started in Vienna psychophysiology. And that is actually the science of bringing psychology and physiology, biology together. And then I decided to go to San Diego, where I started the UCSD, neuroscience and neurophilosophy. And when I did the research, especially in Vienna, I had one main topic, which was human-computer interface. So what I did is I was researching on the effect of computers, displays, also interfaces on human information processing. And especially, I was watching the brain with electrodes. Pretty invasive, actually, because in the laboratory, you know, you have no problem putting electrodes to people. Looks a little bit like Frankenstein-ish environment there. But it's a very reliable, very good method. And interestingly, I had the idea to mindset, actually, a couple of years later, because the last 20 years, I was working in consulting, innovation consulting in IT. And I worked for a weather company, a weather company from the Red Bull Empire. You know, this wheat drink from Red Bull. And they also have a weather company. And I was innovation manager. So what we did is improving predictions. And then I thought, okay, everything we do here, we could do the same with the human mind. I mean, it's strange. It's totally different if you have a fluid around Earth when you're predicting something. And it's not like the brain when it comes to this, but the mathematical methods behind pretty much the same. And also, the artificial intelligence applicable to it is pretty much the same. Sure. Okay. So let's learn a little bit about what you do. And let's look at the first slide. Yes. Tell us about this. Yes. What what you see here is a combination of two things. We are working with goalkeepers. And what we do with the goalkeepers, we take those glasses here, these glasses, and the goalkeeper wears it. And we go into training situations, typical standard situations in soccer, like a penalty, like a kicking after after fouls, like typical attacks. And we see how the goalkeeper perceives the entire field from the perspective of the goalkeeper in real time. And then we can also see on the heat map, like here, that this is a pretty good goalkeeper, always looking straight. And that's a good sign because when you look straight, you are on the right position on your map. If you, for instance, would see this burst pattern with a lot of yellow in the edges around the edges, then you have a very stressful keeper who is constantly searching for hints how to interpret a situation. And this is a very typical thing here that you can see. And this is also something that we can observe in esports, especially in racing, that this centering and looking at the right place, mainly at the right place, is the gate to success and being better, making less mistakes, being faster. And yeah, this is this is one typical approach here. We will also work with drones and cameras to have the bird's view also on the field, of course. Sure. Okay, so let's take a look at the next picture. Okay, so tell us about this. Yeah, that is actually the basis. And that is what I must say makes it pretty unique. We know in esports, we're also dealing with companies, we're working together with companies even, that are claiming to change the state of mind via electrical stimulation, we look into the eyes mainly, we look at the blinks, we look at the color of the face, that means the blood flow through the face, we can also see the pulse through the skin. And what we do with those physiological measures, we have an analytics core in a platform, the advanced human attention prediction platform. And this analytics core, we are running all the analytics coming in from glasses that I've shown from cameras, from keyboard, all the metrics are calculated there over a person that means it's personal profiling, like a pulse watch. And what we do is we predict how the attention will be the next consecutive minutes. So if you're in the middle of a game, in the competition, we are not at the competition level yet. But it will help you in biofeedback to show you where you are, and you can take countermeasures when you're, for instance, stressed out, fatigued, losing focus, all this. And we can help with the biofeedback. And our approach is to go to different verticals with this platform, because it's usable, of course, also in the car. When you're driving a car, you have to be attentive. And if you're not attentive, you get a warning sometimes. But even worse, with autonomous driving, the car has to know what state you're in, because all the time it has to hand over if it's necessary. And so this type of attention monitoring system is getting much more important the next couple of years with autonomous driving. So we're going through also all through to health. So ICE and their anomalies are very indicative of also neurodegenerative diseases. So we have a lot of things to cover here, but we start with the high performance sector. So the application is broad to different sectors, but it does apply to eSports, is that correct? Exactly. So in eSports, this is where we also will be, this will be the only sector where we also develop a software as a service. Very similar to those typical PulseWatch suites from, I don't know if it's allowed to say brands, but Polar as a European brand, Garmin, Apple Watch. I mean, they all have it in there to control the pulse. And we will do the same. And we will also help to design the right training, because we notice from the contacts in the eSports business from the trainers that we have, that many players are playing in the comfort zone. And that is absolutely wrong. I mean, when you're training, you have to be absolutely out of the comfort zone. When you are in the competition, you have to be kicked out of the comfort zone, if it's necessary. And then you have to feel well with this, but you have to try to stay in the comfort zone, but not for the training. You need plasticity. The brain only works when it's stimulated, and you only learn when you have some amount of neuroplasticity. And this is what we try to achieve by the feedback to say, okay, what you're doing now is fine, but it's just fine. It's not more than that. You're in the comfort zone. Try harder and do something else. And this is what we develop together with the trainers. So you use biofeedback then in what you're doing? Exactly. So how we feed it back, we plan to build a buff cam, how we call it like this buff, like this Lucky Charm for gamers, a cam that sits on top of the monitor and is individualized. And it shows, it has a chip in it. So an iChip and it's autonomous, actually. That means it doesn't suck on the resources of the CPU. And we have also a traffic light system on the camera showing the red light is on when you are in the wrong state of mind, and the green light is on when everything is free for you and you're at your best, you're in the zone. And this is how we will feed back also together with an app, of course, with a web app and a handy app. And this is what we also develop together with our Korean partner. Okay, we do have a question from our viewer. Do you think people with ADHD will have trouble at gaming because they can't focus on one thing like the goalie in your example? Yeah. That is a super interesting question. And I had a similar discussion today. The problem with ADHD often is that the goal signal is always on. That means you're highly motivated, but you're still under stimulated. And that is actually the problem that we find in every person. We have a certain kind of activity level. And when we are very extroverted, we are constantly under stimulated, and we are seeking for measures to just get stimuli to interact with people to just raise our activity level. And the thing is, with ADHD, you're actually, you're trying to raise this level as well because they are constantly under stimulated. And once the goal signal comes, it's just a goal signal, but it's absolutely, it's an unguided missile. So what helps is, except for regimes of drugs, which I'm not a doctor to claim if it's good or not, but in gaming, could definitely help. I found studies where it can help when you have a focus and the goal signal. It depends on the game. So if there's a lot of distraction there, it won't be very beneficial. But if it's a game that can really catch your attention and your focus, especially the gaze of the eyes that help a lot to establish this focus of attention, then it could be even beneficial. I know one gamer very well who has ADHD. So yeah, it works for him. He's in the flow when he's gaming. Terrific. Okay, so let's look at the next slide. Okay. And so what does this show? Yeah, that shows a typical working place of the world champions in sim racing of first DK, a e-sports team in Denmark. And we work together with them. And this is also a very interesting topic here showing the also the limits of the method. So if we would say, for instance, we go into the car again, so we go into any car, we have a camera in there and the camera is watching us. The problem with car driving is it's extremely boring. Nothing happens there. So you drive your car 30,000 kilometers and the only thing that happens is snowflakes. I mean in Hawaii, probably a volcano breaking out or something like this. That is something, you know, but it rarely happens. And so we are also interested in sim driving because of course it's a little bit like real driving. I mean, it's a big deal like real driving. But things happen. So all the reactions, fear, starter reactions, all the reactions expecting the gaze patterns looking into the right angle onto the curve, which is a absolute discriminator between the really good drivers and the not so good drivers. And all this, we can find them, we can also use it in other applications. And this is why we have this database idea. And not only this single mindedness in applications where we say it's only e-sports. Attention doesn't work like this. It's like having a heartbeat only when you're doing training. You always have a heartbeat. And the Apple Watch constantly measures the heartbeat and puts out a profile. And this is the way to go for us as well. Okay. So let's look at the next slide. Okay. So I know this is a little blurry for our audience, but can you tell us about that? It's a little blurry, but it shows pretty well the two things that we use. We are already using those glasses that can measure the gaze. And also very interesting, the puppet size, you know. You can see the mental load when you have the size of the, I think it's right to pronounce pupil in the eye, because of course it regulates the amount of information intake to some extent. Plus, there's a lot of nervous system hanging there. And so we can also see this with the glasses. And on the right side, you can see the buff cam. That's just a sketch of the buff cam, how we plan to have it with this feedback mechanism, with the traffic light system. And this is where we're also looking for investors to build this camera. Needless to say, COVID is not the best time for investments currently because traveling around is not easy. But we are in a good way. And this will be actually also a consumer product in the end. We will start with the teams and we are working with teams. But it will be interesting for every gamer like a pulse watch is also interesting for everyone who is interested in sports or self-measurement. Sure. And that's a good comparison because, you know, a certain number of years ago, we probably wouldn't even imagine that, you know, everyone has, you know, one of these. But now it's pretty normal to have almost a huge population with wearing such watches. So let's look at the next slide. Exactly. So what's interesting for us is also, especially in training, what is the right kind of training? So we stay one level above the application. So if somebody says you need to shoot the trainer for being a better shot, that's one thing. What we do is we look at the level where there is something is automatized. If it's like driving in a car again, when you learn to drive a car, nothing is automatized. You know, you have to think of everything, you're serial. You think, okay, I have to shift the gear. I know, not in the States, you have automatic. But now it's the gas pedal, now it's the brake pedal. And you always have it serial in your mind what you do next. And there is a stop sign and I will stop. And at some point, of course, you can make a phone call. And you think you are parallel because you can drive and it doesn't make any effort, you know, it's effortless. And that's exactly the point. Some things I have to be trained to the state that they are effortless. And other things are skills and they will never be effortless. And this is also discriminated between talents of some kind. We also can use this as a talent mechanism. Find out who has a talent for what. Because being fast is super when you are also accurate. So if the speed accuracy is fine, it's a really a gift. But if you're only fast, it doesn't really help you. And we heard it many times from trainers that the actions per minute are the thing that is the key performance indicated, but it isn't. It's actually the accuracy in those actions. What is the zone in picture show? Yes, this is actually the if you look at this inverted U shape. This is how we all we humans tick. And I mentioned before, when you are really extroverted, you're constantly under activated. This is a feature, a hardwired feature of our brain. And when we under activated, we are seeking stimuli. We're looking for persons we know because social interaction is very activating. We look for action, we want to do something. This is this is the motivation behind it. When you're on the other side of the spectrum, on the other side of the U shape, you are constantly over activated and introvert people are constantly over activated. So they are introvert because they want to defend them against the stimuli. This is why they have quiet places because they have quiet work because they're not that talkative. They are over their optimum the moment they talk with somebody. And this is the zone actually. The zone is the optimum. This is the individual zone where you feel very, really good. You feel at home. You are satisfied, you're comfortable. When you have stress and competition is stress. Of course, people act differently to this kind of stress. Do I have the skills? Do I have to drill? As long as the drill is enough and I don't need resources for this cognitive resources, I can perform pretty well. But at some point, when a new situation comes and the demand is higher, I might be out of the zone. And then the question is, where is my zone normally? And this is why we have to find it out in a constant measuring like also with the pulse watch, you need to have something like a baseline. It's not like you can measure it once and then you know it once for all. You have to have a baseline. And with this baseline, you know exactly where the zone is. And for performance, the zone is perfect for training. It's not perfect. You need to go much harder in training. And so you can use this methodology for both training and for competition. So athletes need to try to learn how to go out of their comfort zone. Is that right? Exactly. So in training, there has to be a going out of the comfort zone. And also, and I find this very interesting in eSports, the sport is more and more professionalizing in a way that nutrition is a topic. Having sleep is a topic. Also doing physical sports is a topic. And the brain needs that because you can only learn when we have some degree of neuro plasticity. And neuro plasticity is a feature of the brain that is degrading from 25 years on. That means if you have a typical eSports guy, 14 years to 22, fine, they can learn extremely fast. That's perfect. But when you're older and at some point, we would need professionals that older than the current ones are, then you need to do the extra mile. And you need to be a little bit smarter in training because the plasticity is going down. And all the learning is not that easy anymore. Sure. Okay, so then let's look at the next slide. And what does it show? And that's actually the point what happens when you're in the action mode, you can train hard, you perform hard, you neglect fatigue, you can fight it. Sometimes you add stimulations like a red bull or something else, some kind of energy drink. On the next slide, we can see what happens then when you're over the top. So if you have the red sign on our buff cam, you are in this pointless action mode where you just all over the place, which means something because the gaze also is all over the place instead of focused. And you train more, you train without the break, you have more stimulants. But the point is, they train too long. Many of the of recall players, they know exactly that they have to worry at the training and not play for 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, the same game. It's like trying to win the Olympics and swimming by only swimming. It just doesn't work like this. Right. Right. Okay. So then what's the next slide? I believe we have another. Exactly. And that's the point. And this is what we discussed. And this is what we also research with the Korean partners game over this part, where you're overtrained, you feel exhausted, you lose lives, not the real ones, but you know, the computer lives once, and you lose also the health and the motivation. And that is exactly what should not happen because the career of esports athletes is very short. And it's not only explainable with the actions per minute, and it's exhaustion. And that is stressy. It's not the point. I mean, if you look at somebody playing violin or piano, you have artists who play until they're 90 years old. And this is also very demanding from the psychomotory side. So it's much more than this. It's the kind of training. And this is where we do the research also. So it's a lot of research also put into this to make the performance sustainably better over a longer period in time. Sure. Okay. So we do have to wrap it up, but I want to give you an opportunity to tell us a little bit about where your business is going and how those who are interested can contact you. Yes. So we are currently looking for investors for our software product. We have our analytics as a service, the consulting approach. I see that we have now the LinkedIn page there. You can visit the LinkedIn page, contact us, follow us. We can contact you back then. Have a talk. If you are a captain, a team leader, trainer, it will look differently than when you are an esports athlete. But we actually talk with everybody who is interested in this topic because it interests us so much. And so, yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Christian. I found that very interesting. I learned a lot. Super. All right. So anyway, thank you to the viewer who sent in the question. And thank you for joining us today. Make sure to tune in next week. My guest will be Jeff Stansfield of Esports Circus. See you then.