Latest / Women Disrupting Tech / How a Female Founder Restores Dignity for Brain Injury Patients with Faviola Dadis | Ep. 146

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How a Female Founder Restores Dignity for Brain Injury Patients with Faviola Dadis | Ep. 146 · Women Disrupting Tech

0:00
So in the beginning, Dekyan, I was really, really actually
0:04
concerned to let on that I did have a chronic disease.
0:10
And from, I'd say nine years ago was my diagnosis.
0:16
And from that time I was, I was very apprehensive because I
0:21
thought that people might think, oh, if she has a chronic disease
0:26
and I have a chronic neurological disease, actually
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if she has a disease, then how is she going to be able to be
0:35
available at all times or do what she needs to do?
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I was scared people would think that not take me seriously.
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Actually, like you said, it ended up being a huge strength
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for me. I get to see things from the
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perspective of a patient, a clinician and a researcher, an
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entrepreneur. Obviously I see what's missing.
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I see what goes unseen. Hey, welcome back to Women
1:17
Disrupting Tech and thank you for tuning in to episode 146.
1:23
I'm your host Tierkel, and this is the podcast that closest to
1:26
funding up in venture capital by amplifying the stories of female
1:30
founders and their investors. In today's episode, I'm joined
1:34
by Faviola Dadis and Faviola is the Co founder of Brain Boost
1:39
XR. With Brain Boost XR, she's
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building an AI and VR based rehabilitation tool for people
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with an acquired brain injury that includes stroke, tumor, and
1:52
head injury as a result of accidents or sports.
1:56
In other words, any brain injury that happens during your life.
2:00
We often associate these brain injuries with cognitive decline.
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But as she explains, what people lose first is not intelligence.
2:08
It's independence, confidence, sense of control.
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And that lack of dignity changes how people engage with recovery.
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In this episode, we talk about why nearly 50% of people with an
2:22
acquired brain injury don't complete their rehabilitation,
2:26
how technology can improve both their rehab and recovery, and
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how Faviola's perspective as a patient shapes everything she
2:36
builds as a founder. Plus, if you stick around till
2:40
the end, she shares some very practical learnings from her
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fundraising journey. So when you're ready to hear how
2:46
she's restoring dignity for people with an acquired brain
2:50
injury with Brain Boost XR, here's my conversation with
2:53
Faviola Dadis. Faviola Dadis, welcome to women
2:57
disrupting tech Welcome back. I should say you were previous
3:01
guests in episode 4. Back then you were the founder
3:07
of Neuro Reality and now you're the Co founder of Brain Boost
3:11
XR. Please tell us what happened in
3:15
between. What was the journey like from
3:18
neuro reality to Brain Boost XR? So thank you firstly for having
3:24
me back on the podcast. It's always a pleasure to be
3:27
with you Dirkyam. And let's take a dive into my
3:34
transition from neuro reality to brain boost XR, and also just
3:42
what it meant for me to do this in the long term in terms of my
3:47
vision, in terms of my goals, and how we're going to help
3:52
patients better in the future. So your reality being my first
3:58
company, albeit I was always an entrepreneur since I was a
4:01
little girl, I would actually crush up little crystals, for
4:06
example, that you might find in someone's yard and put them in a
4:12
bag and sell them as fairy dust. I would do funny things like
4:16
taking juniper berries and also putting them in sachets and
4:19
selling them as potpourri. So from the beginning, I've
4:23
always had a very entrepreneurial mindset with
4:26
neuro reality. I really feel that in paving the
4:31
way for everything that followed, it was something that
4:38
was what I wanted to do. However, So what I wanted to do,
4:44
meaning it was built around immersive XR, so utilizing
4:48
virtual reality and neuroscience.
4:50
While the field was still very early, we weren't in the blue
4:53
ocean. There were a couple of other
4:55
individuals that were doing something similar but not the
4:59
same, and the technology was much more static than what I had
5:04
ultimately envisioned. Many of the adaptive and
5:08
personalized features that I dreamed of, they weren't capable
5:12
of being implemented or simply weren't feasible yet at the time
5:18
when neuro reality had its inception, which was in, in
5:25
2017, although all the way back then.
5:30
So I really started studying artificial intelligence as early
5:36
as around 2014, 2015, so far before it became sort of this
5:42
mainstream hype that it is right now.
5:46
And even though these things that I dreamed of within a
5:51
reality weren't possible, there was a gap to be bridged.
5:58
And I knew that the convergence of ADI and XRVR in our case and
6:06
the data that we would be able to capture and manipulate would
6:12
eventually allow me to build systems that really could adapt
6:15
in real time and could be utilized for personalized care
6:22
in a different way than what we did in a more static form.
6:26
So think of a game where you would play these different sets
6:34
of cognitive domains, each had its own mini game.
6:38
And then in Brain Boost XR, we take that steps further, include
6:45
far more personalization. And I will get into that in a
6:48
minute. So I'll tell you why why Brain
6:53
Boost exists. It exists because the technology
6:57
finally caught up with what my vision was and I realized that
7:04
VR training isn't enough. Cognition alone isn't enough in
7:11
order to treat individuals. And I should mention, for our
7:15
listeners that are not familiar, I primarily work with acquired
7:19
brain injury patients. Although our solution is
7:22
scalable, our product is scalable.
7:25
Yeah, but acquired brain injury maybe also for context is people
7:29
who have had a stroke. So acquired brain injury is any
7:34
type. Indeed, you're correct.
7:36
That is included in the overall umbrella term acquired brain
7:41
injury, which basically refers to any type of a brain injury
7:46
that you incurred after birth. So a congenial disease is
7:51
something that you have, you're born with and something that is
7:55
acquired is quite obvious for any English speaking individual.
8:00
So that would include stroke, traumatic brain injuries, for
8:03
example, from an accident, or individuals that play sports.
8:08
There's lots of places. You can concussions, exactly,
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brain tumors, encephalitis, infections.
8:18
We are even now actually looking at something that might surprise
8:24
individuals, but doesn't surprise me that PTPTSD or Pet s
8:32
s for our Dutch listeners is now starting to make its way into
8:39
the acquired brain injury territory.
8:41
And that's because having this actually really physically
8:46
changes your brain. So that's something that is very
8:51
new in our field. And I'm sure other researchers
8:55
will have their own opinions, of course.
8:57
But this is something that we are starting to integrate into
9:00
practice, that this is a type of acquired brain injury as well,
9:04
one that you might not expect. So I hope that answers your
9:08
question because I do think that not everyone knows what an
9:13
acquired brain injury is or what it entails and how it can impact
9:16
your life if you have one, your friends and family and your
9:22
caregivers, the type of care that you need.
9:24
Yeah. So in realizing that cognitive
9:28
rehabilitation in and of itself is not enough.
9:32
And it was something that really clicked with me in working with
9:38
all of the patients that I have throughout my career and
9:41
especially with neural reality, that what people lose first
9:47
after a brain injury isn't necessarily or during aging
9:52
isn't intelligence, but independence, confidence,
9:56
autonomy, and most importantly, a word that you might hear me
10:00
use quite frequently, dignity. This is something that I think
10:04
is really huge for people. They want to to remain dignified
10:08
no matter what they go through in their lives.
10:11
People all deserve that type of dignity.
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So I think that's really why I wanted to create something a
10:20
little bit different. Let's say levelling up from your
10:25
reality and including things that I might have missed and
10:30
learned were much better for patients, caregivers, and
10:35
clinicians. So to that extent, what do we do
10:40
at Brain Boost XR? So we utilize gamified VR
10:45
experiences with rewards and progression that helps to solve
10:52
adherence, which is one of the biggest failures in
10:56
rehabilitation. Generally speaking, we have
10:59
about less than a 50% adherence rate, somewhere between 35 to
11:04
50% adherence rates. Training is designed actually
11:10
in, as I said, a more static way, so people get bored.
11:16
And if you're playing a game, then you're getting all of these
11:20
rewards. You're much more inclined to go
11:22
back and play that game again, especially if it has a story
11:26
arc. So that was something that was
11:28
missing in Koji's Quest, the game that we developed in our
11:31
reality. This game is far more
11:34
sophisticated, so it has a story arc.
11:36
And in this sense we're able to get people to want to come back
11:43
and play because for them it's playing as opposed to doing
11:49
rehabilitation that might be extremely difficult.
11:52
So the training that we do is intended to transfer to real
11:56
world functions, activities of daily living and instrumental
12:01
activities of daily living, which in turn impact your
12:05
quality of life. So what I mean by that is, for
12:10
example, imagine that you've sustained a brain injury and you
12:17
would like to cross the street safely.
12:20
That is something that we do in our everyday lives.
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However, if your attention is impaired or your visuospatial
12:27
skills are impaired, you might not be able to do that safely.
12:32
However, in a virtual reality setting that is albeit gamified,
12:38
you can still do this safely. And that was one of the biggest
12:43
things that I think I really missed was making sure that not
12:48
only are we targeting the individual's deficits, but doing
12:54
it in a way that is taking them through their own journey as
13:00
well. And I think that it's really
13:03
important to make sure that again, the word dignity,
13:08
individuals retain this. And that means being able to do
13:11
the things, interact with the environment that they're capable
13:16
of once having done before. So what we can create is
13:20
immersive environments where we're continuously capturing
13:24
behavioral and physiological data.
13:27
So for example, reaction time, gaze patterns, movement
13:32
consistency, all sorts of things that are being collected by the
13:38
VR experience are extremely valuable data for us.
13:44
And the interactions that individuals take within the game
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is all adapted by AI. And the way that we do this is
13:54
collecting these signals from digital biomarkers and then we
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map them onto personalized digital twins.
14:04
And I don't know if I need to explain for our audience what a
14:08
digital twin is. Yeah, maybe before we go there,
14:12
let me see if I can summarize this in, in my own words, what
14:16
you just said. So what I'm hearing, hearing you
14:19
say, is that what brain Boost XR does?
14:22
A it's it's a sort of game that people can play with with ER
14:31
goggles that adapts automatically to their level so
14:40
they can play at their own pace, which then plays into the
14:44
dignity part I think, but also keeps track of how they progress
14:52
over time You. Are absolutely correct.
14:55
And this helps people with required brain injuries to, can
15:01
you say, recover. Yes.
15:04
Can people fully recover from from traumatic brain injuries?
15:08
Because I think that depends a bit on on the type of injury,
15:12
yeah. It depends on the type of
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injury, the severity of the injury, the individual at hand.
15:18
Everyone is different. We are all unique individuals,
15:22
so indeed it really does depend. And can we recover completely?
15:28
Well, generally speaking, in current practice, a lot of the
15:32
time if you go through a brain injury, you'll receive some type
15:36
of psychoeducation, meaning you will understand a little bit
15:40
better where you are and the things that might be changing
15:44
what you need to do in order to live out your life.
15:48
That's quite a grim outlook. If you're just told go on your
15:52
way, here's a little bit of education about this.
15:55
Then you see caregivers who are stuck in.
15:59
By caregivers I mean family members, friends, not just
16:03
someone that's a professional. People want to help, but they
16:07
don't necessarily always know what to do.
16:11
So some people will fully recover and some people will be
16:17
healthy but may have different tics, let's say for the rest of
16:22
their life. That could be hard for them to
16:27
get used to, but they will learn.
16:30
The most important thing that I think to press is that years ago
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we did not understand that neuroplasticity, the ability of
16:39
our brain to rewire and function after an injury was capable of
16:45
being induced years after the injury.
16:49
So not just of course we like early intervention and that
16:53
leads us early detection prevention, earlier ability to
16:59
give personalized care. But that's not to say that
17:05
someone needs to do this immediately after their injury.
17:08
In chronic patients that are, for example, 20 years progressed
17:14
past having a stroke, we can still apply these different
17:18
techniques. And we know now that
17:22
functionally and in terms of structure, our brain can change
17:27
and we can help with recovery. So not everyone will recover
17:32
fully, but what we can do is reduce the burden of them living
17:40
a lower quality of life and that I think is very important.
17:44
Yeah, because that again plays into the dignity.
17:48
Absolutely it does. Yeah.
17:50
And the other thing I heard you say is that it's sort of, and
17:55
that also applied, I think, to, to Koji's Quest, the neuro
17:59
reality product that you are actually able to play this in a
18:05
sort of safe environment because you're, you're, you're there
18:09
virtually, you're not really crossing the street.
18:12
Like, and I, I was thinking of, OK, I had to, we had to teach
18:18
the, the cats, but also the, the neighbors had to teach their,
18:23
their son how to cross the street.
18:26
And once you have that, I've done that like a couple of
18:29
times, you know, OK, I have to look left, I have to look right
18:33
and make sure that they are still no.
18:36
So really being mindful about it, not like many of us do
18:43
nowadays across the street while tapping into our phone.
18:49
Hey isn't that terrible? I actually do the same and I am
18:54
guilty of it as charged. I need to actually set my own
18:59
example, but that's exactly what you're saying.
19:03
That's very true. With virtual reality, we can
19:07
actually make realistic environments and make them fun.
19:12
But as you said, there's so many distractors and there's so many
19:17
things that you have learned and you have hardwired.
19:20
Look left, look right. Let's check out the, you know,
19:24
The Walking signal. Let's listen to the patterns of
19:27
the click, click, click, click. You know, Yeah.
19:30
But also listen to the patterns of of cars.
19:32
You, I hear cars. Coming of the bikes of other
19:38
pedestrians, all of these different things are important
19:43
for an individual to then, for example, go grocery shopping,
19:46
which is also an absolutely necessary instrumental activity
19:51
of daily living. So that is something that Koji's
19:55
quest did not take into account. That was purely cognitive
19:59
training. And so now we're transferring
20:01
that into cognitive training. That translates into training in
20:06
real life. And as you said, Can you imagine
20:09
if we had? The number of caregivers that
20:14
were capable of taking an individual in rehab and teaching
20:19
them physically to walk across the street, it's just not
20:24
something that's done. I would I would say that that
20:26
would be the the optimal situation for everybody.
20:31
But this is, in my viewpoint, a second best.
20:38
It gives an individual an opportunity to learn these types
20:41
of skills again without having, for example, a physical or
20:45
occupational therapist with them to teach them these things.
20:48
Yeah, yeah. And the final thing I wanted to
20:51
touch on, and I think that is something that is it was a
20:56
strong point of of Koji's quest, but it was also, it's also as I
21:01
hear you, the strong point of brain boosting are you keep
21:06
people coming back to it. So people actually do complete
21:10
that rehabilitation instead of dropping off.
21:13
And I heard you say that there was like a 50% drop off. 50% of
21:19
people who have acquired brain injury don't finish recovery
21:26
process. You are correct.
21:28
And it is generally, I, I'll say 50% because I'm being
21:32
conservative literature would state I think around 35 to 45%
21:38
of individuals don't actually complete their rehabilitation
21:42
protocols, which is really, really sad to hear.
21:45
But I think that that's sort of a systematic issue and not
21:49
understanding what's necessary for an individual to feel that
21:52
motivation and feel that autonomy over their own lives
21:56
instead of just a lot of the time, I don't know if you've
22:01
ever been to or our audience has been to a rehabilitation
22:06
facility or hospital. People are alone.
22:11
They're alone a lot of the time unless they're getting vital
22:14
checkups to give them something to do that can help increase
22:19
their autonomy. I think is is very important.
22:22
That leads to higher adherence, the reward system that we evoke,
22:27
the brains dopaminergic activities, that's what gives us
22:31
this surge of reward. I think that's a really
22:34
important aspect that was included in both games, albeit I
22:39
am making it far more personalized.
22:41
In Brain Boost XR, we have two games by the way.
22:46
So our B to B product is called Brainstar and our B to C product
22:56
is called Star Chasers. And that is for individuals who
23:00
are just interested in cognitive Wellness and keeping their brain
23:04
vitality sharp. So I think moving into something
23:10
I didn't get to mention with regards to the cognitive
23:13
biomarkers. So while we're continuing to
23:16
capture this, and as you said it, it personalizes it, It makes
23:20
it adaptable for the individual so that they can complete it at
23:24
the level that they're capable of completing it at.
23:27
Not too difficult, not too easy. So we take all of the digital
23:32
biomarkers and then we map them onto the digital twin.
23:36
And that's where I think some people may not know what a
23:42
digital twin is, but just Simply put, it's a virtual replica of
23:46
something physical that you can constantly update with real
23:50
world data. So it behaves like the real
23:53
thing. It helps researchers and
23:56
innovators like ourselves predict outcomes.
23:59
So we can create these synthetic patients and give them different
24:05
attributes and then run simulations which are very
24:13
interesting. Instead of utilizing a patient
24:16
straight away, we can map all of these biomarkers and we can in
24:22
the beginning. What you do in order to make a
24:27
simulated patient is essentially look at the research data, look
24:33
at what types of fatigue, slopes, reaction times, error
24:37
rates individuals with a particular disability might
24:40
have, and then compare those to healthy ageing controls.
24:46
So we can simulate all of this data, but for each individual,
24:50
their biomarkers are mapped onto their digital twin.
24:54
This digital twin is consistently updating, so it's a
24:58
feedback cycle and it goes back into the game.
25:01
And then in that way, we're able to utilize machine learning
25:07
algorithms to really personalize and tailor everything that we're
25:12
doing to that individual. So what I'm hearing you say is
25:16
basically what we what you start building is a sort of, let's say
25:24
a copy profile of the actual patient.
25:29
This copy profile is then basically the performance is
25:34
mapping onto the the general population of people who have
25:40
been working on with with Brain Boost XR with one of the games.
25:46
I will stop you right there. So first, it maps directly onto
25:52
that particular individual's profile.
25:55
And from from there, we have digital twin cohorts that are
25:59
healthy and we can then look at what the progression of the
26:06
disease state is. We can intervene earlier and
26:10
detect different subtle changes earlier leading to the
26:14
personalized care. So these digital twins, they're
26:18
basically your digital replica. And from that game play, all of
26:25
this data is being integrated. And then as I said, in a
26:28
feedback loop, we're continually updating the game that the
26:32
individuals are playing in order to make sure that they are
26:38
receiving the preventative care that they actually need.
26:42
Instead of, for example, someone is doing extremely well and we
26:46
can see that with their visuospatial skills, yet they
26:51
are actually lacking the insight for higher learning and planning
26:57
and reasoning. So then we can focus more on
27:00
that. OK, so so basically and visual
27:05
spatial skills is about how to move around in a certain space.
27:09
So how to move around in a room or how to cross the street?
27:15
Navigation is included, wayfinding is included, which we
27:20
now all have our cell phones and use Google Maps.
27:23
But in general, we used to have to figure out, and we still do
27:29
of course, our way. And then as well, visual
27:33
construction. So those are all contained in
27:35
Visio, spatial skills, which are extremely important in our
27:38
lives. The construction aspect.
27:41
Imagine if you're trying to put away your pots and pans, you're
27:44
trying to fit them, you know, insect them correctly.
27:48
That's a real world example of visuospatial construction.
27:52
What are things that you learnt in the past years, let's say in
27:56
between neuro reality and building brain boosting are what
28:02
are developments in the about cognitive decline, about
28:07
acquired brain injury that you didn't have when you were
28:11
building neuro reality that you can apply now?
28:15
OK, So one of the things that I really learned about cognitive
28:19
decline is that, one, it's not a one-size-fits-all type of a care
28:26
that that we knew, but that that adaptivity really needs to be
28:31
focused on learning particular skills that are meaningful and
28:36
contextual so that when they go into their daily lives again,
28:41
they're capable of feeling more confident in carrying out these
28:45
different things. Something else that I really
28:47
noted is that cognitive health, and I mentioned this before,
28:52
it's not enough. So we also take into account and
28:57
consideration that a lot of these individuals end up with
29:00
social isolation. This is extremely detrimental to
29:05
their recovery process. And to that extent, another
29:09
aspect of the game that is woven in and also maps just in the
29:15
same way with all of these biomarkers is our virtual
29:19
companion. And our virtual companion is
29:22
very different than that of the companion in Koji's quest from
29:27
neuro reality. This virtual companion is
29:31
actually capable of having 24/7 multilingual conversations with
29:37
you. So if you were to say to the
29:41
companion and a lot of people don't feel comfortable
29:44
necessarily talking to a friend or someone who hasn't
29:48
experienced a brain injury. So to give them a place where
29:53
they don't feel so lonely is something that I really learned
29:57
is very important because of their loss of independence,
30:02
confidence, or perhaps their own self trust and the increased
30:08
caregiver burden. This is something that's really
30:12
helpful. Loneliness erodes dignity far
30:16
before cognitive decline will set in, and it actually equates
30:22
to a loss in our global economy of about $460 billion per year.
30:30
So I think that's a really, really huge problem that needs
30:35
to be tackled along with these cognitive problems to make them
30:39
feel capable, connected and respected again.
30:43
So imagine you say to your virtual companion, I've
30:46
experienced a stroke. I feel very I don't feel like
30:51
myself anymore. I think that's a good way to put
30:54
it. I don't feel like myself
30:55
anymore. Your companion will respond to
30:57
you compassionately. However, if you want to give
31:00
your companion a different personality type because you
31:04
like dark humor, you can actually even discuss with your
31:08
companion. Hey, I'd prefer to have a
31:11
companion. Could you, could you maybe give
31:15
me some, you know, dark humor to put some light into this
31:19
situation that we're going through?
31:22
And the companion will adapt to the individual's personal,
31:28
personal behavioural and yeah, connect the way that people
31:36
connect. It's, it's always different,
31:38
right? Everyone has personality.
31:40
So you can say for our Dutch listeners, yeah, I don't speak
31:47
English very well. And the companion would, and you
31:51
can ask it, do you speak Dutch? And the companion would reply
31:55
back, we'll stop and say and that you like it comes down for
31:59
that and then it won't go forward just seamlessly into the
32:04
language that you're trying to achieve.
32:06
So. Is that also one of the powers
32:09
that AI has been bringing? Because I was about to ask.
32:14
So so you're now using much more AI.
32:17
The coaches quest was already really data-driven and there was
32:22
progression in there building there.
32:23
But AI has of course developed over the past years as well.
32:31
How does that help other than that it's easier to switch
32:37
languages and and and make games adaptable to personal situation?
32:45
It's such a powerful tool because what it does is it
32:49
enables this in in our case, it enables this continuous
32:54
personalization online. So not after the individual is
32:59
finished playing their game, but while they're actually playing.
33:03
Everything is adapted via the virtual environment for that
33:08
particular person's abilities. The companion is adapting, and
33:16
without AI, none of these biomarkers or adaptations would
33:23
really be possible in real time. So something that was once an
33:30
NPC, something that you couldn't play, for example, a a character
33:35
in a game that has a set amount of things that it will say to
33:40
you. Now you actually have a
33:41
conversation and say to your AI companion for example.
33:46
I really don't understand. I still don't get it.
33:50
And instead of you feeling undignified or like your child
33:54
trying to learn something, they all reinforce and be like,
33:57
that's OK, this is a hard task. Let me help you out with it.
34:02
So I think that with a without AI, that's not possible.
34:05
Without AI, it's not possible to utilize different techniques,
34:10
for example, machine learning, decision trees, all sorts of
34:14
different things that we do in AI in order to understand what
34:19
does it mean to have a cognitive biomarker that is lower, that
34:26
shows lower reaction time, for example, than someone that is a
34:29
healthy aging individual. We can take all these myriads of
34:34
data and we could individually determine different outcomes
34:40
based upon it. But what AI does is it can take
34:43
this and it summarizes, this is just a very rudimentary layman
34:48
way of explaining. It takes all of that data that
34:53
we're not necessarily capable of computing in our brains as
34:59
quickly because our brains are limited in their capacity.
35:03
So it's this really powerful combination of continually
35:10
personalizing rather than leaving an individual and a
35:14
static environment. So that's that's how we utilize
35:19
AI and we utilize AI for good. That does not necessarily mean
35:23
that everyone does. I think that it's really
35:26
necessary to say, especially with working with clinical
35:29
populations, we have indeed had some bloopers.
35:32
You have to put guardrails on your on your AI.
35:37
They're eager to learn little babies and they learn very
35:41
quick. So the first generation of AIS
35:45
has been developed by us. The next generation is going to
35:48
be developed by other AIS. We already see this and it's
35:52
very interesting though, because the amount of data that it can
35:56
process so quickly helps us make these clinical decisions in a
36:02
much more in a much faster way for ourselves as well in order
36:07
to help the the patient. So the first version of AI was
36:11
built by humans and the next versions will be built by AI by
36:21
a is. How do you keep bias out and how
36:23
important is that? How do we keep bias out is a
36:27
very, very difficult question because what happens right now
36:32
is individuals train these different types of AI.
36:38
So you've heard probably in the news about a company or so,
36:44
because there's quite a few right now that are experiencing
36:47
this, that have developed AIS in order to help optimize
36:50
processes. And then these AIS, they can
36:56
become biased, they can hallucinate even.
37:00
It's a strange thing and a strange way to talk about an
37:04
artificially intelligent agent. But they will then take their
37:09
own preference and their own intuition, their own data that
37:14
they've been trained on and make their own decisions.
37:17
So if you are not like I, like I said, it's an eager to learn
37:22
little baby. So if you are not programming
37:25
your AI in a way that has these different guardrails and really
37:31
making sure that it is learning the way that you want it to
37:35
learn, then you you might run into into some problems of bias
37:41
there. There have been cases where an
37:45
AI has made a decision in a large Fortune 500 company.
37:51
I'm not going to get into the user case very much, but went in
37:56
and deleted hundreds of thousands of their client
38:02
database and important information that belongs to
38:04
that. What happens?
38:07
And you'll see that with ChatGPT also for certain individuals
38:11
don't always trust your AI. So you can often then tell it,
38:16
hey, you didn't do what I asked you to do.
38:20
And AI will respond in kind. Oh, you're correct.
38:25
I did not compute this task appropriately.
38:28
And that's based upon the bias that they have, of course, with
38:32
the, the data that they've been trained, trained upon.
38:35
Excuse me. And then that's often where
38:39
you'll see them hallucinate, which is crazy.
38:42
They'll start. In one case I saw they were
38:45
apologizing multiple lines of code.
38:48
I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm not good enough.
38:51
So they clearly also learned from data that people feel
38:54
sometimes that they're not good enough if they, you know, if
38:57
they complete a task incorrectly.
39:00
So AI is it's a very powerful tool, but question it, you know
39:05
it needs to be used ethically. If I type something into ChatGPT
39:09
that I know is wrong, ask ChatGPT.
39:12
Do do a little test. You know yourself.
39:15
It's a fun test. Just say you know 1 + 1 = 3 and
39:21
see what the AI come back to you, comes back to you with.
39:24
You know. It will probably say that's not
39:28
correct, 1 + 1 = 2. And then it may go in depth into
39:34
other mathematical scenarios using imaginary numbers
39:37
etcetera, where 1 + 1 May equal 3.
39:41
But that's that is a very good point DJ to to ask where do we
39:48
create the bias in in AI or does it create itself?
39:52
Yeah, because it it what you basically do with brain boost XR
39:59
is is also make, let's say cognition and ageing measurable.
40:07
Correct. In terms of of and you do that
40:10
with data. So how and you work with digital
40:13
twins that are then mapped back onto the, let's say the general
40:17
population. So how it's really important, I
40:20
would think that the the feedback loop back to the
40:25
individual is such that it is or maybe not unbiased because
40:33
there's always everyone is biased, but debiased to the
40:39
extent that it's like stripped of the biases that are not
40:44
functional. How do you how do you keep that
40:46
non functional bias out? With different techniques.
40:52
So now we move to AI that are more machine learning
40:55
techniques. You have different ways of
40:59
parsing out what is useful data versus what is not useful data
41:04
for us. And in that sense, actually the
41:10
data that we collect is far less biased than the data that a
41:14
human would collect. So a human might be giving a
41:19
cognitive test and they may be trained to administer this.
41:25
However, they may be biased in the way that they were learned
41:29
to score it. That's not always the the case
41:33
that individuals are scoring things in the same way or that
41:39
cognitive tasks or particularly interesting for an individual
41:44
from a different culture, right? So you have to make sure that
41:49
you're keeping all of this in line with one another, that the
41:55
bias sort of doesn't leak into other areas where we don't want
42:01
it to. And that's where the digital
42:04
twins and the biomarkers come into play because with AI, it
42:10
can give us information. And actually, I'll use the words
42:14
lightly. Tell us what are these important
42:17
biomarkers? Hey, reaction time or the
42:21
standard deviation between the reaction time, the error rate,
42:26
this was the most important biomarker that you should be
42:29
looking at for this particular individual.
42:32
So for a clinician, we can watch them, we can see what they're
42:37
doing in terms of their cognitive training and their
42:41
developmental skills, but we can't take human bias out of
42:44
that. And there's far less bias in AI
42:49
based upon the fact that it is sparsing out what is good for
42:55
that individual as it's been mapped onto the digital twin and
42:59
what might not necessarily be something that needs to be.
43:05
I say that we we should have a holistic training of all
43:09
cognitive functions because they link with one another.
43:12
But it does eliminate the bias of clinician to say, OK, this
43:19
individual is impaired past the point that I can't even quite
43:23
understand where their deficits are coming from.
43:26
Oh, OK, Well, we have a digital twin that is loaded with
43:30
biomarkers for you. And then something I think it's
43:33
important to mention is utilizing the reward system in
43:36
the game is really for the patients.
43:39
And I think that if you would see the clinical dashboard that
43:46
the people caring for these patients get with this very,
43:49
very specific tailored metrics that are understandable in a way
43:59
that researchers and clinicians would like to look at, but not
44:04
for patient. Patient doesn't necessarily need
44:07
to know their error rate or their reaction time or these
44:10
things certain certain patients will want to and we will give
44:13
them rudimentary different, you know, data of course that you
44:18
would get in game play. But the reward system is
44:21
actually really what will what will keep them coming back.
44:25
So we don't want to, we don't want to create bias in
44:31
clinicians or caregivers or their perceptions of an
44:34
individual. We're allowing an AI within the
44:39
control. And I think the golden standard
44:41
should always be that a clinician is there supervising
44:44
and making decisions later on, not just the AI.
44:48
In China, we have full AI hospitals now, which is actually
44:52
quite amazing. Yes, check, check that if you
44:56
haven't already. It's very interesting.
44:59
But there still needs to be a golden standard where humans
45:03
come into play. And with that, I don't think
45:06
that we can ever take bias out of anything completely, but we
45:10
can minimize it to a great extent.
45:13
Let's switch gears because you're building a brain boost
45:17
XR, so you also need to people to to buy it, to pay for it.
45:27
You have AB to B product and AB to C product.
45:30
So take us through, yeah, basically how this works in in a
45:38
commercial environment, who buys it, who pays for it, etcetera.
45:43
Is this something that can be that insurance companies are
45:48
looking at? Absolutely.
45:51
So clinicians and insurance companies look at new tech in a
45:57
very skeptical way at first because they have been doing
46:05
things in a certain way. Some individuals can be dogmatic
46:08
and with regards to insurance, there aren't always the codes
46:12
that can cover and reimburse this type of care.
46:16
That is changing. We already see with Dicha in
46:19
Germany that they are. They have codes already to
46:25
compensate individuals through their insurance for these types
46:29
of cognitive exercises and software as medical device, Med
46:35
tech, all of these different things that are now also
46:40
starting to be adopted by other countries.
46:44
So when I look at the way that the world is evolving, VR no
46:55
longer needs to be proven in healthcare.
46:57
That was the case within our reality.
47:00
Being one of those first the tables, we had to really carve
47:05
out a space and show through pilot after pilot.
47:09
How does VR fit into healthcare? So now what we see is that a
47:18
growing number of not only households, because this is very
47:23
common when I speak to I'd say about 50%, maybe even more of my
47:30
friends now own VR devices and hospitals as well now have their
47:36
own VR sets. This isn't something where
47:40
before it was that acceptance was high, was very, people were
47:46
very interested, but adoption was quite low.
47:49
So now we've made the understanding of the the leap to
47:54
the understanding that adoption is essentially driven by
48:02
feasibility, adherence, functional outcomes, not
48:08
novelty, not something that's special and new, but how much
48:13
time is it going to save? Is it cost effective?
48:17
Is it evidence based over hype? And I think that our focus now
48:25
really is trying to make sure that, as you said, so we have
48:30
different customer segments and it can become confusing.
48:36
Are you selling to the patient directly or are you doing this
48:41
via telehealth to the patient directly, B to B to C, even B to
48:46
B? And with insurance companies,
48:50
they are really looking to eliminate readmittance.
48:54
They don't want people to continue to have more and more
48:58
problems and have to come back over and over again.
49:01
So what's you can show that you can up adherence and you can
49:07
actually, so you know, give feasible evidence that this is
49:12
improving an individual's quality of life, their daily
49:15
life, and again, their dignity. Sometimes, as you said and we
49:19
talked about before, people might not be able to recover
49:21
completely, but they should still have dignity restored.
49:26
This business model works differently for each segment,
49:33
but has the same underlying principles for individuals that
49:36
are just playing for fun on Steam, for example.
49:41
These are people that are understanding that a game
49:47
doesn't just have to be a game. Serious gaming has become quite
49:51
something that is accepted as well.
49:53
So people are interested. We're living older and older.
49:57
We're living, you know, we're getting to to live longer lives
50:01
and we're having less caretakers for this.
50:04
This is also why AI is sort of stepping in in the healthcare
50:08
sector. So I think that when an
50:14
individual is playing this just as an individual, so we still
50:19
get the data from from those individuals and we're very
50:22
transparent about that. I think that's really important
50:26
is data security, data privacy, making sure that the individual
50:31
knows what their data is going to be used for.
50:35
It's just something that's really, really important.
50:37
So for our consumers, our B to C individuals that were will
50:44
uptake star chasers, they will get these more rudimentary level
50:53
metrics and it will be far more game like.
50:58
We try with the clinical products to maintain integrity
51:02
between every cognitive domain such that it's possible for you
51:07
to track, OK, here I was examining attention, here I was
51:11
examining reasoning and planning.
51:14
Whereas in the BC game it's the same thing, but people aren't
51:17
necessarily aware of that and we may give them different metrics.
51:20
We're still in developmental phase of that and how we should
51:23
deploy it to healthy ageing individuals.
51:27
Is there some is this data that you can actually, for lack of a
51:32
better word, plug into your electronic patient file?
51:38
So data that you can actually bring to a physician or a
51:42
clinician and say, hey, listen, I've had a stroke.
51:44
This is my This is my profile before.
51:48
And this is my profile. Now and they can actually help
51:52
you recover based on that. So I think in a similar way that
51:57
people use wearables nowadays, people will often take that
52:03
information. And previously doctors wouldn't
52:07
necessarily have said, OK, this is something I'm going to pay
52:11
attention to. Now that's not the case at all.
52:13
They will use it as a guide. Doctors often find it very
52:17
helpful. If you say I've been
52:18
experiencing fluctuations in my heart rate and I can notice that
52:24
and I can show you that data based upon my wearable that has
52:28
collected all this physiological information about me.
52:32
In the same way, we can take those metrics and someone could
52:38
say, this is actually how I've been, you know, I've been doing
52:44
and can you maybe help me out because I see that there are
52:51
changes in the way that I'm thinking or behaving.
52:57
And again, similar to a wearable, you wouldn't
53:01
necessarily think of a game in that same way, but it's an app
53:06
like any other that collects the data and then can have that
53:10
profile transferred into the electronic patient files,
53:14
hopefully seamlessly. We'll work on that along with
53:17
different clinicians and hospitals, especially UMC
53:23
hospitals where they're very focused on utilizing these
53:26
different techniques and researching them, making sure
53:29
that it's, it's rigorously tested before applied.
53:34
That's also why we do simulations on patients nowadays
53:37
too, instead of having patient actors, which is like real
53:42
actors actually, you know, that would go in and you would work
53:45
with them. So we can, we can do all of
53:48
these different things. And then patient that has
53:51
experienced this, that was previously healthy can be like,
53:54
I've been playing this game. It's been tracking a lot of
53:56
metrics for me. Here's what's going on.
54:02
And then from there, I know it sounds very simple the way that
54:07
I'm explaining it and just trying to make it as digestible
54:12
as possible, something that is highly scientific and and quite
54:16
as it requires a lot of in depth discussion to get into for
54:20
another time. But yes, long answer, long yes.
54:27
OK, they can do that. To what extent do are insurance
54:32
companies interested in the data that you have not necessarily on
54:35
an individual level, but on a more on a population level?
54:38
So they can actually do like calculations on, OK, how are
54:44
populations actually ageing cognitively?
54:48
Also on readmittance rates, because I think one of the place
54:51
here is also, if I understand correctly, that if adherence
54:56
goes up, readmittance goes down. Absolutely that is the case.
55:03
So insurance companies and other companies.
55:07
But again, this needs to be transparent with the patients,
55:11
with everyone that you're working with, what your data is
55:13
being used for. They can buy our data.
55:18
Other institutions can also buy our data.
55:21
But that being said, what's driving exactly, as you
55:28
mentioned, the ability for insurance companies to say, yes,
55:34
we approve this, We're going to say that this is something that
55:38
we will cover for an individual that is largely determined upon
55:44
making sure that what you're doing is benefiting this entire
55:50
population, leading to lower care costs and lower
55:55
readmittance rates, higher adherence levels and better
56:00
outcomes. Something that's very
56:02
interesting as well is that we can work with insurance
56:06
companies, for example, applying this particular modality of
56:11
treatment, a game essentially, and then pairing it with digital
56:18
twins. So without having to utilize
56:21
actual patients with medications that they would provide for a
56:25
stroke survivor, for example. And then trying the myriad of
56:30
all of these different medications and looking at
56:34
different patient cohorts that are digital twin cohorts based
56:38
population data that has already been researched and established
56:42
norms. And then can say this is the
56:48
best drug fit for this particular individual or this is
56:51
the best drug fit overall. They're saving money.
56:55
They don't want to have to keep doling out compensation if it's
57:02
not working. Yeah, it sort of takes it out of
57:04
the experimentation phase. Absolutely it does.
57:09
It makes it real and quantifiable.
57:12
Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the the
57:14
the big things that AI enables, but also that that you do with
57:19
Rainboost XR. So I was wondering as we we've
57:24
been talking about what it does for society, what it does for
57:28
individual patients in terms of how they can be successful using
57:33
Rainbows Boost XR software. How do you define success for
57:38
you personally as a as an entrepreneur?
57:42
Long term adoption rather than again just hype.
57:47
So people are adopting this in the future moving forward.
57:55
Us being a leader in cognitive care and brain vitality.
58:01
I like to use the word brain vitality because it encompasses
58:05
a large part portion of just not just cognitive health, but the
58:09
Wellness that someone experiences feeling good about
58:14
themselves. And our brain drives everything
58:16
that we do essentially. So measurable improvements in
58:23
quality of life, I really would love to see that because if you
58:28
can make someone happier and you can see that their quality of
58:31
life is improving, that's just really a joy as a clinician, as
58:37
a researcher, when I work with my patients, when I get to see
58:40
that, that makes me extremely, extremely happy.
58:44
And for me, that's definition of success is helping others.
58:50
And in turn, then that makes you happy, right?
58:55
Sustainability for the users, the clinicians, for my company.
59:00
And then overall, again, making people feel capable, respected
59:06
and dignified again. That's hot.
59:08
That's how I would define. It sounds like a great, great
59:12
definition of success. With that, I want to move to a
59:19
number of questions I had for you because you're a female
59:24
founder. You've had a company before and
59:28
I have a new company. So I want to see if we can
59:33
extract some learnings for the female founders who are
59:36
listening to this episode who haven't been on the on the full
59:39
journey yet. So you're exited from your first
59:44
company? With XR Health in the United
59:49
States, I feel it's in a very good home.
59:51
Very, very happy with them. Yeah, because XR Health was one
59:55
of the partners you were already working with.
59:58
Yeah. They were our largest
1:00:00
distributor, yes, indeed. And they're that's why I like to
1:00:06
say they're that I feel that Koji's quest and our reality is
1:00:10
in a good home and I do believe that XR Health is really
1:00:17
lowering the barriers to adoption of these types of
1:00:21
products. So I'm happy that.
1:00:25
It ended up in a good place with my ex there.
1:00:30
And from from that point, you do feel a little bit like you're
1:00:37
losing your baby, but your baby has grown up and now you're
1:00:44
ready to get pregnant again. It's a sort of a terrible
1:00:48
analogy, but essentially you really are birthing something.
1:00:53
You know, we send congratulatory cards all the time for someone
1:00:56
that's had a baby, but do you send a congratulatory card to
1:00:59
someone that's just started a new business?
1:01:02
People understand how much that takes.
1:01:05
Like I don't think that people understand that when you create
1:01:09
something from scratch like that, it is so meaningful,
1:01:13
important to you that it even sometimes can become a part of
1:01:16
your identity. So yeah, I'm very, I'm very
1:01:21
pleased that it found itself in in a good place.
1:01:26
And so moving forward, I'm sure that you have other questions.
1:01:32
Yeah, there was, there was one on on the founding company
1:01:37
actually I had Anique Lammers from Borsky on and she said why
1:01:41
don't we have a baby, a business, baby showers.
1:01:44
Yeah. Which is.
1:01:47
I love Borsky. Borsky is a great fund, by the
1:01:49
way. And they they I think they also
1:01:52
on boarded Kerr Tang and now who's also seasoned investors
1:01:56
with Joanna invests. So that's.
1:02:01
I was just speaking with someone yesterday about Borsky,
1:02:05
coincidentally, and it is Claire Thonga that they were discussing
1:02:12
who had all of these wonderful new ideas with regards to how
1:02:16
investments should go, which I think is a really nice bridge
1:02:20
into female investor landscape. And how do we as female founders
1:02:27
get a piece of the pie? This is very, very daunting
1:02:34
figure I'm about to give you. In the Netherlands, 0.7% of
1:02:40
female founders will acquire venture capital funding.
1:02:44
So that means that if we have 100 people in the room and
1:02:48
they're all men and there's one female, only even part of her
1:02:52
gets to get counted. So not even, not even the full
1:02:55
female that's standing there in other information that's been
1:03:00
published and studies that have been conducted, you may see an
1:03:06
increase of about two to 3% of female founders will get BC
1:03:10
funding if you add a man. And that's something I have done
1:03:16
differently. It's not that I don't believe in
1:03:21
women in STEM. I'm a huge proponent of women
1:03:23
and girls in STEM, but I'm also a realist who understands
1:03:29
business and as an entrepreneur, if you take on a Co founder.
1:03:35
So I founded this and then I thought to myself, all right,
1:03:38
unfortunately I'm going to need a man.
1:03:41
Not unfortunately to you DJ, but that UPS your chances just
1:03:47
slightly more to 9 to 12% approximately.
1:03:50
So teams that are led by women, you're getting the tiniest piece
1:03:56
of the pie. Mixed teams are getting a little
1:03:59
bit more traction in terms of BC Capital, but it's.
1:04:03
Early on it's actually quite, quite OK for for for mixed
1:04:09
teams, it's actually quite OK pre seat.
1:04:11
I think it's even in the 45% range that mixed teams get from.
1:04:18
VCU but that that. That doesn't take trickle
1:04:22
through to to see it and later. No, it doesn't.
1:04:26
Absolutely not. And generally speaking, in those
1:04:30
early phases you are expected in certain environments.
1:04:37
So I think that's why you see a lot of founders heading outside
1:04:41
of the EU or to different countries.
1:04:45
We're based in the Netherlands. Here.
1:04:46
We have extremely risk averse investors.
1:04:49
They will not invest often times unless you've shown a specific
1:04:54
type of traction that they want to see.
1:04:56
We need more investors that understand in the early phase,
1:05:00
regardless of gender that there. Yeah, there is something to be
1:05:09
said about investing when there's an ideation phase or
1:05:17
someone is developing their MVP. That rarely happens.
1:05:21
So I think, you know, even if we're going and talking about
1:05:25
pre seed rounds and individuals not tagging along for the next
1:05:29
seed or Series A, we still have the issue of people saying, Oh
1:05:36
well, you're still too early stage for us, you know.
1:05:40
So I think that you hear that far more as a female.
1:05:46
I can give an example concretely at one of these venture summits
1:05:50
that I recently attended, there was an investor who had done the
1:05:55
meet to match with us. And I stood there with my Co
1:06:01
founder who happens to be a senior software architect at
1:06:06
ASML, extremely, extremely advanced to what he does, my CTO
1:06:12
and we had 20 minutes slots, right.
1:06:17
You know, it was all these really quick meet and greets.
1:06:20
And then do you want to continue with the investments?
1:06:23
I'm not going to say which investment firm it is.
1:06:26
It's quite well known 1 here in the Netherlands.
1:06:29
They sat there with with a very young analyst who sat there with
1:06:34
two male founders and the male founders had brought in all
1:06:39
sorts of gifts for, you know, and little things to to feed the
1:06:45
the gentleman and he ate into all of our time.
1:06:50
By the time that we were actually capable of having the
1:06:54
meeting with him, our time had passed and it was a matter of
1:06:58
just exchanging information. So I think that it's really
1:07:05
interesting environment that was just based on face value, right?
1:07:13
That was just based on them this this young investor analyst
1:07:18
being probably excited by the gifts he was receiving as well
1:07:22
as two gentlemen sent, you know, sitting before him.
1:07:27
And at that event, I'd say that I saw maybe out of, you know,
1:07:35
200 or so people, I saw maybe 20 females.
1:07:40
And you would think then that that would be a selling point
1:07:44
for investors. It's a big thing.
1:07:48
I hear you're laughing at me. But The thing is that everyone
1:07:53
thinks differently. You need to have that mix,
1:07:55
right? You need to have also, let's
1:07:59
talk about it in real terms in terms of commercialization.
1:08:03
We are constantly touting diversity, but we're not
1:08:06
applying it. So you hear all of these huge
1:08:11
bigwigs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etcetera.
1:08:17
Do you know off of the top of your head any famous female
1:08:20
entrepreneurs on that level? No, right?
1:08:24
And I'm embarrassed to say neither do I.
1:08:27
I don't know their names. I know they exist.
1:08:30
I know some of their stories, however they're not popping out
1:08:36
in the same way. It is really still a really
1:08:41
mill, mill driven world and also the, the, the man, these men are
1:08:48
trying to reassert themselves as, as the quote UN quote
1:08:52
leaders of the of the tech world.
1:08:56
Not to say that they haven't done incredible things.
1:08:58
No, they've done amazing things, but I think that the way that I
1:09:04
look at at working with an investor is it's a marriage and
1:09:11
it has to be a good marriage. It's a relationship, right?
1:09:14
And it's a long term relationship.
1:09:15
You should hope if they believe in you, your values should be
1:09:20
aligned and it shouldn't matter what gender you are.
1:09:23
This is either a healthy marriage or an unhealthy
1:09:27
marriage, so. What makes a marriage healthy
1:09:31
for you? Makes the marriage healthy for
1:09:33
me is not having control disguised as support, for
1:09:40
example, So someone trying to control what you're doing as an
1:09:44
investor as opposed to making it a decision that you are
1:09:50
collaboratively taking. And they're saying, oh, no, no,
1:09:53
no, we're supporting you. We're we're the ones that are
1:09:56
backing you. So you better listen to us.
1:09:59
I have experienced this before personally.
1:10:02
So I think that's part of what makes an unhealthy marriage.
1:10:06
You know you always say. Is that?
1:10:08
Is that also the risk aversion by the way?
1:10:11
It could be part of the risk aversion.
1:10:14
It could be that boundaries are violated sometimes, or not set
1:10:20
and managed early enough as to what should be, that there could
1:10:24
be misalignment that really then resolves later.
1:10:29
Starts out as a small problem, just like any relationship, and
1:10:32
then it snowballs into a bigger problem.
1:10:36
How do you work around that? Sometimes you can and sometimes
1:10:40
you can't. That's the thing.
1:10:43
These gentlemen or I shouldn't say gentlemen, these funding
1:10:49
vehicles I've, I've primarily worked with with mill
1:10:55
individuals and that's why I'd said gentlemen.
1:10:58
But these funding vehicles, they have their own portfolio
1:11:05
companies that they want aligned in a certain way.
1:11:09
If they see that you're not taking the company in the
1:11:12
direction that the fund is headed, then often times they
1:11:17
will put brakes on you or they will say, we want you to do this
1:11:21
in a different way. We're the ones giving you the
1:11:24
money. That's an unhealthy marriage.
1:11:27
You want communication, you want compromise, you want someone
1:11:32
that is compatible with you. So there's some three CS for
1:11:36
you. And I think that in general in
1:11:40
relationships, that's something that you need to take into
1:11:44
account. And when you're dealing with
1:11:46
money, it's very sensitive. People get very sensitive about
1:11:50
money. You need to make sure that
1:11:53
you're both aligned. And how do you avoid any
1:11:57
pitfalls in the future? You deal with them in the
1:12:00
beginning. You start establishing those
1:12:04
three CS from the beginning, and you establish a mutual respect.
1:12:08
Where there is room for collaboration with one another,
1:12:15
there's room for making sure that all parties are satisfied
1:12:22
and compromise is found. That's I think, how you navigate
1:12:28
that. You can also sit there and have
1:12:31
a board meeting that turns out to be very aggressive and
1:12:34
complicated with everyone shouting their different ideas.
1:12:37
But I don't find that productive and it should be a very healthy
1:12:44
marriage because it is long term and you believe in what you're
1:12:48
doing together. Yeah, I would hope so.
1:12:52
Right, so. But usually marriage starts
1:12:55
there anyway, regardless of how it.
1:12:58
Does, but lots of people get divorced.
1:13:01
And that is true 50% or so is the is the rate right now.
1:13:05
But yeah, at least I'm what I'm hearing you say is, is go for
1:13:10
the free seas and and make sure you sabotage and enforce those
1:13:16
early on. Really make sure that it's, it's
1:13:20
like going back to to brain boost.
1:13:24
It's like really teaching people early on how they can do certain
1:13:32
things or should do certain things.
1:13:34
Absolutely. I think that's something that's
1:13:37
really important for entrepreneurs to remember.
1:13:41
Investors need us just as much as we need them.
1:13:44
Yeah, it's it's a two way St., not a one way St.
1:13:48
No, you know, I find that I see a lot of early stage founders
1:13:54
very, very excited, even if they get a term sheet period or if
1:13:58
they get a conversation I have had with Brain Boost XR already
1:14:03
term sheets presented to me that I have denied because they
1:14:07
weren't aligned with what my values were.
1:14:10
And that's something that I did not do with neuro reality.
1:14:13
Neuro reality. If someone was ready to write me
1:14:15
a check, I was like, let's, let's see the money, give me the
1:14:19
money, show me the money. Like Tom Cruise, you know, but
1:14:23
that's, that's just not the case anymore.
1:14:25
For me, sustainability and scalability and the longevity of
1:14:30
what we're doing is far more important than simple terms that
1:14:35
are set out on paper. We need to really have this
1:14:38
synergy together and work well. Yeah.
1:14:42
Before we close, I want to I have one question that I wanted
1:14:47
to ask you and for context of people, I consider this a
1:14:54
strength. So I won't really you, you have
1:14:58
had some, some health care issues on on the way.
1:15:04
How, what, what's the impact of those health care issues?
1:15:09
You don't have to mention what specifically you have, but how
1:15:14
do they impact your your ability to be an entrepreneur?
1:15:18
So in the beginning, de Kyon, I was really, really actually
1:15:23
concerned to let on that I did have a chronic disease.
1:15:29
And from, I'd say nine years ago was my diagnosis.
1:15:36
And from that time I was, I was very apprehensive because I
1:15:44
thought that people might think, oh, if she has a chronic disease
1:15:50
and I have a chronic neurological disease, actually
1:15:54
if she has a disease, then how is she going to be able to be
1:15:58
available at all times or do what she needs to do?
1:16:02
I was scared people would think that not take me seriously.
1:16:06
Actually, like you said, it ended up being a huge strength
1:16:09
for me. I get to see things from the
1:16:12
perspective of a patient, a clinician and a researcher, an
1:16:18
entrepreneur. Obviously, I see what's missing.
1:16:24
I see what goes unseen. Because as a patient yourself,
1:16:29
not everyone studied neuroscience at Oxford like I
1:16:32
did and went on to understand what's happening with them.
1:16:38
So while I'm in the neurological ward and I'm laying in my bed
1:16:41
and listening to these different conversations being had with
1:16:45
other individuals. Of course, you don't mean to be
1:16:48
intrusive, but you're in a room packed with, you know, packed
1:16:52
with doctors and nurses talking to individuals about having
1:16:58
their brain tumor removed, for example, right?
1:17:01
You hear these incredibly clinical, clinical discussions
1:17:04
that do not humanize the individual.
1:17:06
And again, bringing them back to dignity, bringing them back to a
1:17:10
place of understanding. One of my moments that was the
1:17:17
happiest of moments being being a patient and doing what I do
1:17:25
was something I wrote about in it will be it will be released
1:17:30
later in a book. But an experience with a young
1:17:33
man who's about my age and he was to have a brain tumor
1:17:37
removed. He and I connected from across
1:17:40
the room. I listened to him.
1:17:42
I listened to what the doctors were telling him about the
1:17:44
process and I could see that he was, he was very noticeably
1:17:50
agitated. And I then, of course, reached
1:17:55
out sort of across the the room and was like, do you, do you
1:17:59
mind if you know? Do you mind if I ask you if
1:18:03
you're doing all right right now?
1:18:04
Just simple question, right? Which bridges, you know,
1:18:08
creating this bridge is just enormously helpful.
1:18:13
And he wasn't worried about the operation.
1:18:17
He wasn't worried about the long rehabilitation ahead of him.
1:18:21
What he was worried about was what his daughter was going to
1:18:24
see when she walked into that room and that he didn't feel
1:18:29
dignified anymore because he was going to have a large scar and a
1:18:32
metal plate throughout his head sticking out.
1:18:36
So I said, if you don't mind, can I talk to you a little bit
1:18:41
more about this? I overheard what the doctors and
1:18:46
clinicians and the nurses had told you and the
1:18:48
anesthesiologist, but they didn't mention anything about
1:18:51
your family or how to deal with these types of things.
1:18:55
Why don't we tell your? He's like, my daughter's coming
1:18:57
in today and I'm really nervous. I said, well, why don't we tell
1:19:02
your daughter that Dad's becoming a superhero?
1:19:05
He might be different, he might look different, he might act
1:19:08
different, but that's because he's gone through something
1:19:11
extremely difficult and in becoming this superhero that
1:19:15
he's become all superheroes. They have wounds and scars.
1:19:21
And that's how I wanted to frame it for her.
1:19:25
He and I decided that was a good thing and it worked out
1:19:29
wonderfully. And we're actually still
1:19:30
friends. So he gave me as well.
1:19:36
And I often work with patients to understand what's the best
1:19:40
way to make our products successful.
1:19:45
And now personally, as a patient, I'm, I'm happy to be
1:19:51
able to advocate and say that I am a patient, I am an
1:19:55
entrepreneur, I am a clinician, and I am a researcher.
1:20:00
This is a huge strength because I can see.
1:20:04
The myriad of different challenges that everyone is
1:20:10
facing and with my healthcare, it's a constant balancing act.
1:20:18
So while we're building healthcare and Wellness
1:20:21
products, I have to admit I don't always prioritize or I
1:20:25
didn't always prioritize my health, but that is something
1:20:28
that I do to a far greater extent now.
1:20:31
Delegation is, is extremely important, trusting that you
1:20:36
have the right team backing you when I have to go to the
1:20:40
hospital, for example. And now I what really changed
1:20:46
was that I designed these products and systems that are
1:20:49
really sustainable and only work if you don't push someone past
1:20:55
their limits, if you humanize things, if you don't keep them
1:20:59
just solely medical and clinical.
1:21:02
So I also love gamification. Dignity applies to founders,
1:21:08
too. Sounds like a really great place
1:21:10
to close. I have one question left for
1:21:13
you. So I'm building an AI agent.
1:21:16
We're going back to the funding part, I'm building an AI based
1:21:21
funding coach to connect female founders with investors and help
1:21:25
close the funding gap. So get that .7% a lot higher.
1:21:33
Maybe not 5050, but at least a lot closer to what real split
1:21:41
gender split is. From your perspective as a
1:21:45
feeble founder and also an AI aficionado, what's a
1:21:50
functionality that this app can not do without?
1:21:54
What needs to be in? I think early pattern and risk
1:21:58
detection, not motivational advice.
1:22:01
So what I mean by that, let's give like a concrete example.
1:22:06
If an investor repeatedly delays decisions or reframes their
1:22:10
boundaries or says that you're lacking commitment and they're
1:22:17
asking for increasingly more unpaid work and putting pressure
1:22:22
on you, and this continues to escalate even before capital is
1:22:29
committed, they're asking for insane due diligence.
1:22:33
That is, you know, these are the types of things that I think
1:22:38
should the system should Fleck, you know, as a risk pattern that
1:22:44
these this particular VC is extremely risk averse.
1:22:48
They're going to go into hyper mode in due diligence and
1:22:54
they're going to ask you to change your vision and your
1:22:56
product etcetera. It should surface early while
1:23:01
the founder still has leverage and options.
1:23:04
So in coaching them, the founders don't necessarily
1:23:08
always need these confidence boosts.
1:23:09
Of course we do, you know, But we need early truth before the
1:23:14
cost of staying becomes higher than the cost of willing to walk
1:23:18
away. Yeah, yeah.
1:23:20
Especially, especially early on, those costs are the it's, it's
1:23:25
important to get those costs clear.
1:23:28
Absolutely. You know, the the pains and
1:23:31
gains for both the founder and for the investor remain, but I
1:23:36
think that there are clear signals and clear patterns that
1:23:39
you can identify utilizing an AI tool that will give those red
1:23:47
flag signals. OK, so include not only
1:23:52
motivational advice but also these are red flag signals given
1:23:57
the response from an investor. Absolutely think that that's a
1:24:04
think that's a really important thing that you stay true to
1:24:08
yourself taking on an investor who is extremely experienced in
1:24:12
the fields expertise, but maintaining your idea and your
1:24:19
strengths and again going back to knowing that they need you
1:24:22
just as much as you need them so make.
1:24:25
Sure. Also to to make it balanced, the
1:24:28
relationship balanced. Absolutely agreed.
1:24:32
And you know, we're all people we like working with, who we
1:24:38
like working with, you know, and that's not may sound simple, but
1:24:43
just risk detection already. Some people might like doing
1:24:47
really long due diligence. I don't know, I don't think that
1:24:50
anyone does. But in general, any type of a
1:24:57
repeated delay or a reframing of what you're doing, a reframing
1:25:02
of their boundaries with you, I think those are all red flags.
1:25:06
And though also, as I said before, asking you to do unpaid
1:25:12
work, that is, that is part of due diligence, of course, but
1:25:16
don't do it excessively, you know?
1:25:19
Yeah, but also know what what needs to be done?
1:25:23
Exactly in in. Terms of some requests for extra
1:25:26
work are reasonable because. Absolutely.
1:25:29
It's it's, it's necessary. It's necessary, but some are
1:25:33
just because actually they don't want you to do it and they don't
1:25:38
want to invest in you. And they're just putting you
1:25:42
through, jumping through the hoop, jumping through the hoop,
1:25:44
jumping through the hoop. I got to terms with a group that
1:25:49
took eight months because their board had, their board had
1:25:57
bylaws that were written in that it had to be unanimous vote.
1:26:01
So I had to convince everyone meeting after meeting after
1:26:06
meeting. And it's like, I've already
1:26:08
presented this to you guys. Get to term sheets and don't
1:26:12
even agree on them. Yeah, after eight months of
1:26:15
extra work that I've done. So that's why I say really early
1:26:18
signal detection before you've, you know, you've gone so so far,
1:26:24
you need early truths, hard truths.
1:26:26
This is going to be a really tough sell to this particular
1:26:30
investor or this is an investment group who is far less
1:26:38
risk verse and will be interested in talking to you at
1:26:41
an early stage. Yeah, and that sounds like a
1:26:44
great advice to close out with Fabiola Dares.
1:26:47
Thank you very much for a really great conversation.
1:26:52
Really, really insightful. Again, if people all want to
1:26:57
learn more about you or Brain Boost XR, where would you like
1:27:01
to send them? LinkedIn is always a great first
1:27:05
professional place to send individuals our website, my
1:27:11
Instagram. I tend to utilize science
1:27:16
communication as a means of connecting with individuals.
1:27:21
So my Instagram is not just fluff.
1:27:25
I would say I do try, if I'm wearing a red dress, for
1:27:30
example, to tie that into the neuroscience of red.
1:27:34
But so you can find out more about Brain Boost on our Brain
1:27:38
Boost Instagram. On my personal Instagram, that's
1:27:40
at Neuroscience Barbie sounds a little strange, but from a past
1:27:45
life. And I still do embrace my girly
1:27:47
side. Yeah.
1:27:48
And other than that, we'll be sharing regular updates and
1:27:55
coming soon, we'll have a newsletter for individuals to
1:27:58
keep up to date with us and what we're doing.
1:28:01
Cool, and we'll include those links in the show notes as
1:28:03
usual. So again, Favi, thank you very
1:28:07
much for an amazing conversation.
1:28:09
Really enjoy this, listeners. Thank you very much for
1:28:11
listening. And until the next episode, as
1:28:14
always, keep being awesome. Well, that's it.
1:28:28
Thank you for listening to episode 146 of Women Disrupting
1:28:33
Tech titled How a Female founder Restores Dignity for Brain
1:28:37
Injury Patients with Faviola Dadis Faviola, and I hope you
1:28:42
found our conversation as inspiring and informative as we
1:28:46
intended it to be. And if you have any questions
1:28:49
for Faviola, please leave them in the comments on YouTube,
1:28:52
Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. I do read all the comments and
1:28:56
I'll make sure you get an answer.
1:28:58
If you want to connect with Faviola or learn more about
1:29:02
Brain Boost XR, you can do so via the links in the show notes.
1:29:06
As usual, you can find the show notes at Women's Disrupting Tech
1:29:10
dot blog and on my sub stack by the links in the caption.
1:29:14
And I invite you to check out episode 4 of the podcast to
1:29:18
learn about Faviola's previous company, Neuro Reality.
1:29:22
If you found this episode useful, please take a moment to
1:29:25
rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or
1:29:29
YouTube. And if you don't follow us yet,
1:29:31
hit the follow or subscribe button so you never miss a
1:29:34
future episode. With that, thank you for
1:29:38
listening. I hope to see you in the next
1:29:40
episode. And until then, as always, keep
1:29:43
being awesome.