In 1996 my 19yr old nephew, Adam Ritson, was knocked unconscious after a head-high tackle on the footy field. In the X-rays and CAT Scans which followed doctors discovered an unrelated, benign cyst on the base of his brain. Surgery to remove the cyst led to an acute brain injury and severe memory loss.

There was a lot of media coverage at the time because Adam was playing in the ARL as the Parramatta Eel’s star prop-forward.

After being on life support, spending eight weeks in the intensive care ward of St Vincent’s Hospital, undergoing 12 further operations, and eleven months of intensive therapy at Ryde Rehabilitation Centre, Adam’s recovery showed little to no progress.

His memory was so affected that after walking down the hall to the bathroom it was a struggle to find his way back to his room, he couldn’t always recognise us, and he was experiencing serious speech difficulties.

Eighteen months later we were told that there was nothing more that could be done to help Adam, he would remain a vegetable the rest of his life, not knowing us, not even knowing the normal bodily functions.

My emotional response to this was that of a sad, frustrated, angry Aunty who wanted to find a way to help; in other words completely normal.

However my course of action was shaped by the experiences of a long career in the field of research and development of new technologies; and that was a miracle made in heaven.

So began extensive research into restorative brain therapies. With the help of many hours of research by my daughter we two read every journal, rang every expert and, applying a familiar process from Emily’s academic career and my technology career we searched overseas to identify if somebody else already had a solution.

In 1998 led extensive searching took me to India to visit the Central Drug Research of India (CDRI). There they had developed CDRI 08. CDRI 08 is a concentrated extract of Bacopa (bacopa monnieri); a herb commonly known in India Brahmi.

Whilst CDRI 08 had been credibly demonstrated (insert link) to improve brain function, there was no clinical evidence of it alleviating brain injury. We decided it was worth trying.

Adam had a much greater body mass than the recommended doses were prescribed for; and this combined with the severity of his brain injury meant it was unclear at the outset what dosage, if any, might yield results. The extract works by accumulating in the body’s system, so we began with the recommended daily dose, and waited patiently for the allotted time of twelve weeks before we could hope for improvement. There was no result, but there was also no harm, and we continued to gradually increase the dose and monitor Adam’s progress.

When Adam’s Nuero- Surgeon pointed out Adams huge body mass would require bigger doses we immediately increased the dosageand he began to improve quickly and dramatically.

And so, the media attention returned, reporting on Adam’s recovery as miraculous.

There are thousands of families in Australia who are looking after a loved one with a brain injury disorder and some of them began to phone us looking for help.

I started adding their orders to our shipment from India. Sadly some of those who needed it the most couldn’t afford it. The product was not particularly expensive, but long-term brain injury patients typically live on a very restricted income due to their reduced earning capacity.

So I paid to help one person have it, and then another and eventually there was quite a list. It became apparent that charity was not a sustainable solution to the problem. I realised more people could benefit from the product than I was ever going to be able to help on a personal scale.

That’s how the decision to begin the process of commercialising  an extract imported from India (CDRI 08) in to a natural therapy manufactured in Australia (KeenMind) was made.

It was a huge undertaking, both in terms of the time invested and finding the capital; financing Australian independent clinical trials conducted by Swinburne University, market-research, and ensuring compliance to Australian Standards turned out to be very expensive and unbelievably time consuming and a long process.

There was no dream to start a natural therapies business, I had zero interest in Ayurvedic medicine, or even a desire to start a new business; but one of the important things I’ve realised about entrepreneurship is that you can’t chose where the opportunities are, only how you respond to them.