◐Dünya/ 2026say hello→
Human Augmentation Summit at MIT Media Lab.Hand on a plasma globe — tech that feels like magic.
◦ N 37°46'30" · W 122°25'10" ◦ AD ASTRA ◦ SAN FRANCISCO ◦ TO THY KNOWN SELF BE TRUE ◦✦ every augmentation is an amputation ✦ 思 · 造 · 護 ✦ ad astra ✦ memento mori ✦☉☽NESWN37°46'30" W122°25'10"
subject
DÜNYA · BARADARI
channel
mind / matter / meaning
edition
III · MMXXVI
heading
042°
世 · 兄 · 友
─ index 01 ─
transdisciplinary scientist · engineer · designer

DünyaBaradari.

human augmentation · human–AI symbiosis · currently building

I work on the soft edges of human–computer cognition — where neuroscience meets craft and software learns to listen. Currently building tools for human–AI collaboration, for researchers, and for multimodal machines. Founder of Augmentation Lab.·· hover ··

↓scroll · into the work
02 / visual log

Photographs

— hover or tap to turn over
22 photographs · 22 artifacts
First human EEG recording1924 · Hans BergerTwo silver wires on his son's scalp, a 10 Hz rhythm on the drum — proof the living brain produces electricity.
Carbon-filament incandescent lamp1879 · Thomas EdisonA bamboo-carbon filament, sealed in vacuum, glowing 14.5 hours — the first lamp practical enough to light a house.
FDM extruder patent1989 · S. Scott CrumpMelted plastic squeezed through a heated nozzle, tracing shapes layer by layer — the patent behind every desktop 3D printer.
Mother of All Demos (NLS)1968 · Douglas EngelbartIn one 90-minute demo: the mouse, hypertext, collaborative editing, the videoconference. Most of the audience didn't believe it.
Cathode-ray tube1897 · Karl Ferdinand BraunAn electron beam steered onto a phosphor screen — the tube behind every TV and oscilloscope for a century.
Blue LED1993 · Shuji NakamuraThe missing blue LED that unlocked white light and color video walls — Nakamura cracked it on gallium nitride.
Eppendorf micropipette1961 · Hanns SchnitgerA spring-loaded piston that pulls and drops microliters with surgical precision — the workhorse of every wet lab.
The Bermuda rig~17th c. · Bermudian sloop buildersA triangular mainsail on a tall single mast — the sail plan that lets small sloops sail upwind, on every harbor today.
Corrugated cardboard1871 · Albert L. JonesA fluted paper sheet glued between two flat liners — strong, light, cheap. The medium of every cardboard prototype.
The Mechanical Turk1770 · Wolfgang von KempelenA chess automaton that toured Europe for 84 years, beating Napoleon and Franklin. A hidden human played — but the dream stuck.
Laminar-flow cleanroom1962 · Willis WhitfieldFiltered air pushed in one direction past the bench instead of recirculating — particle counts fell a thousandfold, and chip fab was born.
Unix shell1971 · Ken ThompsonA small program that lets you compose larger programs from pipes — why a terminal still feels like the most powerful tool on the machine.
US Constitution1787 · Constitutional ConventionFour sheets of parchment that turned a confederation into a republic — the operating system the Capitol was built to run.
Vitruvian Man1490 · Leonardo da VinciLeonardo's ink study of a man inscribed in a circle and a square — proportion, anatomy, and metaphysics in one image.
Micrographia1665 · Robert HookeHooke aimed a compound microscope at cork, named the boxes “cells,” and printed the first book of the microscopic world.
Bakelite1907 · Leo BaekelandThe first fully synthetic plastic — phenol and formaldehyde cured under heat inside a mold. Ancestor of every cast-resin object.
10–20 electrode system1958 · Herbert JasperThe international standard for EEG electrode placement — each label (Fz, Cz, Pz…) is a measured fraction of the scalp.
Tesla coil1891 · Nikola TeslaAn air-core transformer that throws high-voltage, high-frequency current — basis of radio, wireless power, and a plasma globe's snake.
Sensorama1962 · Morton HeiligA coin-op cabinet delivering 3D film, stereo sound, vibration, wind, and smell — ancestor of every projection-mapped room.
First human fMRI1991 · Jack BelliveauBelliveau imaged blood-volume shifts in the human visual cortex — the first fMRI of a living person thinking.
Rotating-sleeve Olympic barbell1928 · Kaspar BergSleeves that rotate independently of the bar so loaded plates don't spin the lifter's wrists — the 1928 patent behind every modern snatch.
Discovery of infrared1800 · William HerschelMeasuring each color of a prism's spectrum, Herschel found the hottest reading sat just past red — invisible light.
03 / transmissions

Writing

— essays, notes, talks
2024 · 12
essay

The Future of Human–AI Symbiosis

A near-future sketch of a personal AI that lives at the jaw, speaks through bone conductance, and acts as your augmented second inner voice.

8 minread the letter →
2024 · 11
essay

Applying to the MIT Media Lab

Subjective reflections after a year inside — what the admissions game actually looks like, what fellowships really buy you, and who should think twice.

9 minread the letter →
2024 · 02
essay

Open-Source Wearable AI — Wikipedia 2044 ↗

A speculative Wikipedia article from 2044, imagining how open-source wearable AI displaced closed platforms — and what we paid for it. Honorable mention · MIT Envisioning the Future of Computing essay competition.

prize announcement (Schwarzman) ↗Media Lab writeup ↗
10 minread the piece →
04 / artifacts

Projects

— things made, mid-make, archived
Augmentation Lab
active

Augmentation Lab ↗

Founder & director · 2023 →

A 1,000+ member global community of philosopher-builders developing human enhancement tech across AI, BCI, wearables, XR, and low-tech tools. Three summer residencies, 50+ projects, 45 fellows, the Human Augmentation Summit (300+ attendees).

communityresearchleadership
A(I)nimism — AI is the new god
exhibited

A(I)nimism — AI is the new god

Co-creator · Apr '24 — Dec '25

"The world used to be a sacred place, full of chatty and companionable objects." A portal enabling you to speak with the spirit in each object. Multimodal AI bringing life back to things.

AIinstallationmultimodal
NeuroChat
archived

NeuroChat ↗

Researcher (Fluid Interfaces) · '24 — '25

A neuroadaptive AI tutor that combines generative AI with real-time EEG to personalize learning. Closed-loop adjustment of complexity, style, and pacing. With Pattie Maes. CUI '25.

AIBCIresearch
Measuring Confusion with EEG & Eye-Tracking
archived

Measuring Confusion with EEG & Eye-Tracking ↗

Researcher (Fluid Interfaces) · Apr '24 — Aug '25

Detecting reading-induced confusion through EEG and eye-tracking signals — toward interfaces that notice when a reader gets lost. With Pattie Maes.

BCIresearchlearning
AI Avatars for Dating
archived

AI Avatars for Dating ↗

Researcher (Fluid Interfaces) · Oct '24 — May '25

Data-driven AI avatars exploring depth and authenticity in digital dating beyond swipe-based valuation. With Pattie Maes.

AIresearchsocial
Society of Scientists
archived

Society of Scientists

Co-creator · Sep '24

1st place at the AGI House × Sundai AI Agents Hackathon at MIT. 9 specialized AI agents on Jamba long-context models that read literature, brainstorm, and draft a grant proposal from a single research prompt.

AIagentshackathon
05 / in print

Publications

— papers · book · 2021–2025
07 /

Let's build something.