Each year the ARCS® Foundation Orange County’s wonderful Arnold O. Beckman Family Lecture and Reception features luminaries from the world of science. NPI Services Inc. Founder and President Judy Greenspon has the honor of introducing this year’s speakers, Eyal and Leya Aronoff, who have also been featured speakers at TEDxOrangeCoast. Father and daughter Eyal and Leya will deliver a life-changing address. A clinical trial at UCI has confirmed the benefit of simple sensory enrichment therapy (SET) for autism. This therapy led the Aronoffs on a “journey of hope” that has made Leya’s early autism a distant memory.
Eyal Aronoff developed software and co-authored a book on Oracle databases after college, and became a co-founder of Quest Software in 1987, which expanded and was acquired by Dell in a multi-billion dollar sale in 2012. Later that year, Mendability® was founded to share the methods that had brought about Aronoff’s successful quest for a life unimpeded by autism. Around the same time Eyal Aronoff co-launched The Fuel Freedom Foundation, another quest, to reduce the United States economy’s dependence on oil by making the transportation fuel market more open and competitive. Aronoff has produced Pump!, a documentary film opening today, September 19, 2014, in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, to promote more public awareness and activism. Within a week, Mendability®’s home-based autism therapy will be featured in an episode of Innovations with Ed Begley Jr., airing on Discovery Channel, Wednesday, September 24, 2014 at 7:30 a.m. EDT/PDT.
The entrepreneurs in the modern day continue the tradition of quests by giving back to the world in which they have enjoyed success. The Aronoffs have done so in a realm which is particularly close to their lives, helping others who are dealing with autism, as well as in the realm of suffering caused by devastating economic over-sensitivity to oil prices. While not clinically proven other than for autism, anecdotal evidence suggests that SET also holds promise for other conditions that can benefit from better neuroplasticity, such as depression, Alzheimer’s, and much more. The quests continue.
As of this writing, places are still available for the Beckman Science Lecture and Reception, which begins with wines, beer, and delectable appetizers at 6:00 p.m. followed by the lecture at 7 p.m. Held annually at the Beckman Center for the National Academies of Science, 100 Academy Way, (adjacent to the UC Irvine campus), with free on-site parking, admission is available for a $100 donation to the ARCS® Foundation Orange County. Your donation is 70% tax-deductible, and helps fund the Foundation’s mission to advance American science research here in Orange County.