I joined the Memory Trust Foundation team in the summer of 2008. I had teamed up with Amit to work on a completely different project that fizzled before we got more than a month into it. We were sitting at lunch, having just realized that our million-dollar idea was worth far less, and as we were wrapping up the meal, Amit told me about this other idea he had.
The idea behind Memory Trust moved me. My grandfather had just passed away. The day he died, I Skyped his home phone and recorded his outgoing voicemail message. His voice on the machine was so distinctive, and the style of the message so unique to him, that just listening to it conjured a thousand other memories. I passed the mp3 around to other family members, and they had similar reactions. The sound of his voice is so powerful that it continues to jog memories I might never have remembered otherwise.
By the time I joined the team, the first patient's recordings had already been completed, and they were as emotionally compelling as I had anticipated. In the last two years, we've been developing ways to formalize that first process, and build the infrastructure to support many more patients and filmmakers. We are very close to being ready to launch. I will chronicle our final steps in this blog, as well as everything that comes after.
Benjamin Haber Kamine
Chief Technology Officer, Memory Trust Foundation
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