A Society, Not Just a Conference
International Society for
Contemplative Technology
ISCHT exists to establish Contemplative Technologyas a distinct field of inquiry — the deliberate integration of contemplative science (yoga, prāṇāyāma, meditation, Indian Knowledge Systems) with AI, biosignal engineering and digital health, aimed at a very old problem: human suffering, chronic stress, embodied trauma, burnout. Not a conference add-on — a discipline being built in the open, carrying ICCH-AI's conversation forward between conferences.
Focus Areas
Founding Membership
Value in Launch Benefits
Reach, Year-Round
Why Now
Two things converged recently
Consumer and research-grade biosignal hardware — HRV, EEG, respiration — has become cheap and continuous enough to observe contemplative states as they unfold, not just self-reported afterward. And language models have gotten capable enough to scaffold practice, translate traditional texts, and personalise training at a scale no single teacher ever could.
Meanwhile, contemplative traditions carry centuries of applied technique for regulating exactly the states modern medicine is still building coarse instruments to measure. ISCHT exists at that specific intersection — building the shared vocabulary, methods and ethics a field needs before it can be cited, taught and funded as one.
The founding board and leadership roles are taking shape alongside ICCH-AI 2026. Join as a founding member now and you'll be among the first to know as this comes together.
Pillars & Activities
What the society exists to do
01
Research & Evidence
Correlating biosignal markers — HRV, respiratory variability, EEG band power, electrodermal activity — against traditional practice taxonomies (pranayama ratios, dhyana stages, asana sequencing), building a shared empirical vocabulary instead of treating "meditation" as one undifferentiated variable.
02
Standards & Ethics
Naming concrete failure modes before they scale at consumer volume: LLMs simulating guru or teacher authority without lineage or accountability, biofeedback devices marketing unvalidated therapeutic claims, "personalised practice" that strips out the relational core of transmission. Governance sized to those specific risks, not generic AI-ethics boilerplate.
03
Education & Training
A curriculum spine that assumes fluency in both worlds at once — signal processing and applied statistics alongside classical textual study (Yoga Sutra, Hatha Pradipika, Ayurvedic constitution theory) — producing practitioners who can read an HRV trace and a Sanskrit commentary with equal rigor.
04
Clinical & Policy Translation
Moving validated contemplative-AI tools out of pilot studies and into reimbursable clinical pathways, engaging bodies like AYUSH, WHO's traditional-medicine strategy, and digital-therapeutics regulators — so what works in a lab doesn't stall at the clinic door.
05
Community & Convening
An annual gathering starting with ICCH-AI, regional chapters, and standing working groups — the connective tissue between a biosignal engineer, a yoga therapist, and an AI safety researcher who otherwise have no shared venue to be in the same room.
06
Tools & Resources
A living library of biofeedback and wearable device evaluations, open datasets linking traditional practice labels to physiological measurement, and reference implementations — the infrastructure a field needs before it can be taught as one.
Membership
Join early, join free
Free during ICCH-AI 2026 registration
- Founding member status
- Early access to society resources and research briefings
- Coupons toward future contemplative healthtech tools
- Priority invitation once full membership opens
$100 USD / year, post-launch
- Full member benefits
- Access to the member research library
- Society events and working groups
- Voting rights in society matters
A note on the IDs issued now: these are provisional Founding Member listings, not legal membership credentials. ISCHT is not yet a formally constituted society — full registration, verification and legal membership formalities will open once it is, after the conference. Founding members who join now simply hold an early, honoured place in that process.
Say yes to founding membership during ICCH-AI 2026 registration
Early membership is offered only to those who opt in while registering for the conference. Full enrolment opens to everyone after ICCH-AI 2026.
Register for ICCH-AI 2026International Society for Contemplative Technology · Opening to founding members at ICCH-AI 2026 · icchai.com