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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
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[00:38] SPEAKER_04: Hi, this is Angela Fay coming to you for future bill where we are building inspiring places worth living for.
[00:46] SPEAKER_04: What if we could overcome paralysis? That is a really big, very audacious goal.
[00:53] SPEAKER_04: I just want to put some context here. According to dictionary.com, paralysis is the loss of ability to move or sometimes feel anything in part of the body as a result of illness, poison, or injury.
[01:08] SPEAKER_04: But it's also an inability to act or function in a person organization or place.
[01:14] SPEAKER_04: So today, we're actually talking about overcoming paralysis in two in both of those realms.
[01:22] SPEAKER_04: And as we talk about paralysis, really, who cares? Who are the people experiencing the lack of mobility? Are they family? Are they friends? Are they caregivers?
[01:32] SPEAKER_04: Are they purpose driven entrepreneurs and risk takers who are in, you know, embroiled in making sure that people are able to move?
[01:43] SPEAKER_04: Well, I would challenge you that lots of people in particular public health providers need to care more.
[01:51] SPEAKER_04: The data shows that the lifetime cost of serving someone with paralysis through traditional healthcare means is between one and one 3.5 million, depending on, you know, the stage of life or the type of injury or paralysis that they're experiencing.
[02:08] SPEAKER_04: And of course, insurance providers, again, looking at those numbers, they just don't make sense.
[02:15] SPEAKER_04: So we're going to talk today about three in-argable cases for fast-tracking the adoption of new technologies that augment human performance. And fast.
[02:25] SPEAKER_04: These are three ways that we can transform the world of paralysis to a better future.
[02:32] SPEAKER_04: Joining me today and who better to have this conversation is Karen MacLeod.
[02:40] SPEAKER_04: And I just want to introduce Karen is a, I'll call it a next gen entrepreneur. And tell us a little bit about why you're here with us Karen today. What's your story?
[02:56] SPEAKER_00: Hey, you're here. Yeah, my story. I'm not sure where to start, I guess.
[03:05] SPEAKER_04: It's hard to actually hold my lifetime into a few paragraphs, but, you know, I know that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency really shaped your life. So share a little bit of that story.
[03:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess, I'm touching back what you said, the definition of paralysis. People, everyone's paralyzed in some way or another.
[03:26] SPEAKER_00: Through in some part of their life, maybe some trauma they can't get past or physical injury or some psychological barrier they've built themselves over time. But I have a physical paralysis that I encountered over the last two and a half years after a motorcycle accident in Thailand.
[03:48] SPEAKER_00: Well, I was traveling with a business partner trying to incubate a tech startup in crypto blockchain space.
[03:56] SPEAKER_04: And how has that impacted your life? And I just want to talk a little bit about day to day. What sort of impact is, you know, not being able to move from the ways down impacted, you know, your personal productivity and quality of life.
[04:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah. So I'm a bit higher than the way it's more like a net bulls down for what I've got. So I don't have control over most of my abs as well, which adds an extra layer of difficulty. But yeah, it's everything from not being able to move to muscles, but something's in their pain.
[04:34] SPEAKER_00: I guess there's like some body this morning too, because we see your body kind of shrink in some ways as the muscles actually. And then you also like, you know, your stomach looks really weird in comparison to me having like a rather athletic body before.
[04:50] SPEAKER_00: So you kind of like you're kind of going in both ways at the same time. So that can be very strange. And then you also kind of with the same weird stuff with your feet.
[05:00] SPEAKER_00: As they don't get as much walking attention as they're used to, but yeah, it impacts your daily life in some new ways.
[05:08] SPEAKER_00: Pain is interesting and tricky. It seems to come and go in waves like some other things. But even just this last week, like I thought I had dealt with a lot of pain in a really good way. And then, you know, some fall or slip and something happens.
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: And now there's like a new type of pain that you don't remember experiencing for a very long time that comes out of nowhere.
[05:35] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[05:36] SPEAKER_04: And obviously, and this is a bit of a vulnerable point I know, but, you know, I found you and discovered you when I was trying to get some solutions at in business on, you know, with liquid capital. And the reality is the impact of physical paralysis has also impacted friendship.
[05:56] SPEAKER_04: And you know, in your business and, and, you know, over the last two years, do you want to just highlight a little bit of that?
[06:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for friends, I guess you kind of see who your real friends are in some ways and some ways not. And a lot of people are going through their own stuff and then obviously coronavirus happened to a lot of people in other ways for that.
[06:19] SPEAKER_00: But some friends kind of disappear and stop engaging and some friendships become much stronger. And yeah, I had had much larger impact on my life over the last couple of years.
[06:32] SPEAKER_00: Before that, I was, I hoped I was at least fairly independent. And now, I hope I'm still fairly independent, but my friends have definitely come to help in some ways more than others.
[06:45] SPEAKER_04: Now, when I met you, I remember asking you the question, if you had a, you know, if you had a million dollars and you can wave a magic, what, what would you want for yourself? And, you know, that question alone has actually, you know, we've gone down a whole entire rabbit hole based on your answer. But remember what he said to me?
[07:05] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't know exactly what I said. I can try and just wrap it up which is now, but it would probably be an exosude escort.
[07:14] SPEAKER_00: Those can go anywhere from like 50 to 250,000 depending on which one and which model. So that would be like quarter there, a quarter of a million.
[07:25] SPEAKER_00: And after that, yeah, I'm not sure.
[07:29] SPEAKER_04: And what would that exosude or exoskeleton mean for you? What's the actual, you know, personal impact of, of, you know, and I understand that when you first get it, there's always going to be that bird, you know, figuring it all out for your personal case. But then what, what sort of life on a personal level with that create for you?
[07:55] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So I mean, it is, but it's pretty tricky to get around now, depending on where you live with level of problems. I have definitely worse with higher level, but right now, still going more than a couple blocks or even within the building can be tricky depending on like minor injuries that you get and your rest of your elbows, your shoulders, or skin injuries. So having an exosude basically make it so that you could walk it.
[08:24] SPEAKER_00: At least probably a couple hours a day most days, unassisted, eventually, after a couple weeks of assistance. And yeah, get even more independence. It would also just be really good for the body and the mind and anyways, because you're a body and your muscles, actually quite a bit when they're disconnected from your spinal cord.
[08:49] SPEAKER_00: So everything from below my injury has definitely actually feed quite a bit, but also you get actually within your bones, so you get all skewed process.
[09:01] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, then also psychologically, I mean, I've only walked for a total of maybe two hours or three hours in the last two and a half years.
[09:13] SPEAKER_00: So if you compare that to most people's day, you know, you probably get that in the single day.
[09:22] SPEAKER_00: So, like with an exosude, you'd be able to get that the first day of having it almost during the second day.
[09:28] SPEAKER_04: So to me, it is an inarguable case that the case for an exoskeleton or suit or even augmented wheelchairs that are totally different performance are, you know, 10 times more impactful from a human experience pointing to you than what you what currently options, the options are for you now.
[09:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes, waking up and knowing you have to get right into a wheelchair and operate your most of your life in a wheelchair if you want to leave your house can be very strange.
[10:07] SPEAKER_00: I mean, even though it's only been two and a half years, can be imagine if you're born with an injury having early on in life becomes easier over time, but it's still regardless of how adapted you are to it.
[10:20] SPEAKER_00: It's still like feels weird and feels natural in a lot of ways, which is physically obvious for everyone outside, but yeah, it's definitely still strange.
[10:36] SPEAKER_04: So I think we've sort of talked about and proven the case as far as I'm concerned.
[10:40] SPEAKER_04: It's in our dual that you know, we just need to get a cure and an exoskeleton and I want to talk a little bit though about the business and the sense of scale that we're talking about because you and I have talked about this and I just kind of remember, they gave surely I can help you get an exoskeleton.
[11:02] SPEAKER_04: And that was really one of my first goals and then we thought, oh, how many people are we really talking about what is the scope of this problem for, you know, everyone in the world and you and I sort of dug in and did some research and, you know, picking up on, you know, our quintessential Superman Christopher Reeves right there foundation was just one of the sources and we've cited many.
[11:30] SPEAKER_04: That just gives us some of the scope and scale of what we're talking about and in the US alone, there were five, I think it was 5.4 million people suffering from injury paralysis, you know, and this is not including any of the other mobility.
[11:47] SPEAKER_04: The challenge is like on it, you know, elder care or MS or some of the other conditions and you know, I think it was you that brought to my attention the lifetime cost of, you know, our health care public health, health, health, health, I guess, I mean, moving someone, do you want to sort of shed some light on that.
[12:14] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, so it's not it's definitely not just me that needs an XOC most people with paralysis need some type of device similar to this in order to like regain a lot of their life back.
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: I think in the US it's up to about 2% of the population that have paralysis, I'm usually from some form of stroke or a more than vehicle accident.
[12:38] SPEAKER_00: And along with like you mentioned MS ALS is also a big reason for loss of bodily function and movement.
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of reasons someone might be next to see.
[12:54] SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I forgot to put the question.
[12:56] SPEAKER_04: Well, and really what is the scope of the, oh yeah, yeah, right is and yeah, yeah, some of the research that we found and even your knowledge of the public cost direct public cost of of serving somebody with paralysis.
[13:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's put me back on track. Yeah, I was also reading from the WHO that worldwide it's newer from 40 to 60 people per million that are dealing with some form of paralysis.
[13:26] SPEAKER_00: So depending on where you in the world, it does cost different amounts, but it's anywhere from a vote.
[13:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one one million to three million dollars in most developed countries for a cost on the health care system.
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: So it depends on where you're getting your assistance and the degree to which it's helpful, but also it depends on are they including just high cost, performance, chemicals and low quality physiotherapy or is there where they're changed that up a little bit.
[14:01] SPEAKER_04: You know, we haven't even attempted to put a dollar figure or a scope on the lost productivity, right, as far as you as a person or the millions of people suffering from the same condition, you know, they would love to be distributing or in business or to their community or volunteer or to their families.
[14:20] SPEAKER_04: And now there's, you know, just that much more lost productivity and there's and I'm sure there's sometimes scientists or PhD students that can put a dollar fee on that.
[14:33] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's, I mean, it's all over their lost wages for maybe 35% of people with paralysis, no longer work on any capacity, which is quite impactful.
[14:46] SPEAKER_00: I mean, most it's it's a good now that a lot of jobs can be done from your computer, but there's also so many problems that can stop you from being able to do that and other time commitments or restraints that it costs to just keep up with life.
[15:01] SPEAKER_04: So let's just take that individual case just so we can follow that story a little bit. So we're talking between one and three and a half million dollars to service as single individual in comparison to, you know,
[15:12] SPEAKER_04: for instance, getting Karen, an excellent skeleton suit, can you give me an idea of what you understand to be the upfront capital costs and then the ongoing costs.
[15:23] SPEAKER_04: If you were now suddenly found yourself less in the public care system and more autonomous in with a suit, what would that look like?
[15:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, so there's, that's a big question.
[15:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, being in a suit and the benefit so we cost your life, you would prevent a lot of muscle atrophy, which is a large connect, there's a large connection between muscle density and and actually, and cognitive disorders later in life.
[15:54] SPEAKER_00: So having as much muscle on your body is really good for that. When you're paralyzed, you're ever need to have a two to five times chance of mortality, the average person.
[16:03] SPEAKER_00: So trying to keep up with those things as much as possible is good.
[16:08] SPEAKER_00: A osteoporosis and having all of these things not go wrong, the way they save money on the healthcare system in the long term is not needing to get yearly MRIs and X-rays and tens of thousands of dollars with a pain pills per year, along with maybe five to 10 hours of physiotherapy a week.
[16:33] SPEAKER_00: Or you start per month or for a year depending on how good you've done it, set up, I guess.
[16:41] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, the ability to just take back a lot of independence in your life, if you can walk alone at home, unassisted in a healthy way, to where it may have cost you five or six hundred dollars to travel to somewhere to do so for an hour once a week is night and day.
[17:01] SPEAKER_04: So you know, and I had even thought of factored in like the travel costs and things like that, but we're talking about the difference between, you know, an upfront capital cost of I'm just spit 100 and $250,000.
[17:15] SPEAKER_04: And then on going maintenance of the suit itself or maybe check ins with a physio right of I don't know we unize spitballed is something like $2,500 a year, right?
[17:27] SPEAKER_04: Something like that.
[17:29] SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's definitely skewed towards initially getting the suit.
[17:36] SPEAKER_00: And then you would need anywhere from like maybe 10 to 50 sessions with a physiotherapist in order to learn how to use the suit.
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: You're basically learning how to walk again like a child does. So you have to start with a walker and then you start with maybe someone you start with four, four, like three to four people helping you and you using a walker to eventually one person and you using a walker.
[17:59] SPEAKER_00: And then eventually you have like just one or two people helping you and then you get down to just using it alone.
[18:06] SPEAKER_00: But it's it's a very tricky thing for her.
[18:10] SPEAKER_04: So again, Karen, I'm just going to say to me, you've just sort of nailed the business sense, right? And from a from both an individual perspective.
[18:20] SPEAKER_04: And the whole entire public health care system that it just makes more sense to, you know, have a higher upfront capital cost than just, you know, all of these wasted costs and, you know, we've already talked about the human sense.
[18:37] SPEAKER_04: I want to talk a little bit about the sense for the whole community.
[18:44] SPEAKER_04: And I want to get a sense from your perspective on again, if you could go big and, you know, your challenges, even with an exosuit, but certainly in this phase of now until you are independent, independently walking with an exosuit or mobile with an exosuit.
[19:05] SPEAKER_04: You know, essentially we are talking about augmenting your human performance in comparison to what it what it is now.
[19:13] SPEAKER_04: But what would an ideal community look like for you?
[19:19] SPEAKER_04: And I'm going to preface that by saying some of the frustrations that I see what that not even not even directly experiencing paralysis.
[19:30] SPEAKER_04: And I've had a tone line that you and I need to go like wheelchair have a wheelchair race downtown Vancouver and it just built environment.
[19:39] SPEAKER_00: I smoked you right.
[19:43] SPEAKER_04: Really, really sucks as far as curves and bathrooms that are, you know, quote unquote, accessible.
[19:52] SPEAKER_04: All of this major infrastructure has these codes about building for access and yet really it's a marginal increase.
[20:03] SPEAKER_04: I would assume it's probably better, but it's not great.
[20:08] SPEAKER_04: So tell me about the some of the challenges that your experience in the built environment that you live in now.
[20:13] SPEAKER_04: And if you could imagine the perfect base, what would it look like?
[20:19] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yes, that's a good question.
[20:21] SPEAKER_00: And I did have one last idea for that cost just that's from your idea of it only costing margin more for infrastructure.
[20:29] SPEAKER_00: It is almost the same for an exosuit if you get injured in a developed country, you're already costing your medical system on the emergency side anywhere from 70 to 250,000 dollars.
[20:41] SPEAKER_00: Just for the ICU for the surgery and implants, you have to get the doctors, the enlisted colleges and then like the weeks and months of in hospital care that post rehab treatment.
[20:54] SPEAKER_00: You really spend a quarter of a million dollars.
[20:57] SPEAKER_00: So adding on the device that would be 50,000 to potentially another quarter of a million depending on your level of injury.
[21:03] SPEAKER_00: It's not that much more.
[21:07] SPEAKER_00: You're only adding anywhere from 10 to 50% more or 200% more, but yeah, depends on what the total cost ends up being.
[21:17] SPEAKER_00: And your level of injury if your spinal cord injury is not complete and much less severe and it takes much less time if you can use your arms.
[21:25] SPEAKER_00: It's that you could go see more, but how that would change in a society or in a group or community.
[21:33] SPEAKER_00: There's there's so many ways.
[21:35] SPEAKER_00: You think about the basic things that human needs you a community is one of those.
[21:41] SPEAKER_00: A lot of us are very separate and isolated and wheelchair people are not especially during COVID from the people around us were as humans used to having anywhere from 50 to 100.
[21:54] SPEAKER_00: So we're very accurate, close social family or friend members or community members that we engage with on a weekly or daily basis for collecting food or resources and maintaining like a homeostasis or all of the chemicals that run through our body.
[22:15] SPEAKER_00: And we have very little.
[22:16] SPEAKER_00: Now we live in apartments or houses separated from most people we engage with.
[22:23] SPEAKER_00: I mean, this doesn't even touch on physical staff, but the way you build a physical community fully accessible for people that needed would drastically change all of their lives.
[22:34] SPEAKER_00: I've only been in a slightly wheelchair accessible apartment now for the last month.
[22:40] SPEAKER_00: And for the last year, I lived somewhere where it was almost dangerous to leave the house due to like how steep the ramp was now.
[22:49] SPEAKER_00: I just went right into a tree and then even leaving the house was almost possible.
[22:54] SPEAKER_00: So it was a ramp upwards that was way too steep for me to go up unless the one else pushed me.
[22:59] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's I mean a flat apartment style or down-have style community where people could grow some of their own food, engage with a couple of the people work together on small projects or big projects.
[23:16] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, general like STEM engineering science, engaging community would be pretty awesome.
[23:25] SPEAKER_02: The team at Silicon Valley Bank in Canada can help you move your bold ideas forward.
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[23:37] SPEAKER_02: Visit www.svb.com slash Canada slash connect to find out more.
[23:45] SPEAKER_04: I just want to talk a little bit about I'm going to go back in time a little bit with you because it's it's related to this story.
[23:55] SPEAKER_04: And your friends and you have shared that you know you you were a stockbroker. Is that right or you were a broke trade broker?
[24:05] SPEAKER_04: I'm no, no, not not officially.
[24:08] SPEAKER_00: It was all just working for myself as individual.
[24:12] SPEAKER_04: Okay, so as a consultant or for others or just for yourself.
[24:18] SPEAKER_00: I mean I worked at financial companies in Australia that were financial brokerages, but we didn't deal with stocks or options.
[24:27] SPEAKER_04: Okay, you you self independently made money prior to your motorcycle accident.
[24:36] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I learned the trade stocks through school and entrepreneur plants.
[24:42] SPEAKER_04: And then you were and then you were taking that knowledge and you were actually starting a company right at the time.
[24:48] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, so I mean I started personally in stocks and started to research some cryptocurrency more.
[24:56] SPEAKER_00: And one of my last years of school, I met someone that want to work together in that space.
[25:04] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got launched in goal.
[25:05] SPEAKER_04: You've always been a little bit forward thinking right and I know you have some opinions with the whole not the podcast on the next gen economy, which we'll we can leave for another time.
[25:16] SPEAKER_04: But I want to talk you also had built a tiny house.
[25:19] SPEAKER_04: And this just gives us a snapshot on what you were imagining your people like it was you know out of out of the major urban center.
[25:30] SPEAKER_04: It was and what were you imagining would be your lifestyle.
[25:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the whole idea started even just in high school, I started hearing about small houses and also just being being environmentally neutral.
[25:46] SPEAKER_00: So almost the growing a lot of your food being portable and having a low environmental impact.
[25:53] SPEAKER_00: And then also financially I was spending anywhere from one to two thousand dollars on rent with myself and a partner to live.
[26:01] SPEAKER_00: And it seemed just obvious if you can build the house for what would cost maybe two or three years of rent that you could live in for 20 or 30 years.
[26:10] SPEAKER_00: It just made so much sense.
[26:13] SPEAKER_00: And then I was also getting along with other people in the technical community seemed like a good idea.
[26:18] SPEAKER_00: And it almost had a dual purpose.
[26:21] SPEAKER_00: It was have supposed to be able to operate on a farm.
[26:24] SPEAKER_00: It was parked on a vegan animal rescue farm.
[26:27] SPEAKER_00: But it was also designed in a way that it could be used in the downtown studying and kind of machine to look kind of like a shed but still be so empowered and independent and not need like an external bathroom or shower.
[26:42] SPEAKER_04: So I'm going to tie all of this conversation into actionable ways that people can help enable augmented.
[26:56] SPEAKER_04: You heard the business you heard the human case, which is first and foremost really the transformation that we'd like to see for you and for millions of other people around the world.
[27:08] SPEAKER_04: The second of course is the business case.
[27:10] SPEAKER_04: It doesn't make any sense to be serving people with promises and in traditional means really want to engage with the new technologies and bring them bring them to life for more.
[27:26] SPEAKER_04: And it just makes community sense whether you know the challenge for you here and right now is you know the dream with your tiny house is right now put on the back burner right and
[27:43] SPEAKER_04: I'm saying it's just on the back burner. It's it's not eliminated. I know you about anything. It's that your dreams always simmer. You've got so much energy. It's great.
[27:53] SPEAKER_04: So I want to actually say to our audience of listeners, if you feel like you can contribute to the cause you know somebody and you'd love to have a focus cause we're going to talk about three absolutely imaginable ways that you can help right now in the future.
[28:13] SPEAKER_04: First of all, the big, big bold future that it's part of Keirin's biggest imagination and my imagination here at Utilville is actually build a purpose built prototype village that will enable Karen to live in the community that talks about and people where they can live as permanent residents or they can
[28:41] SPEAKER_04: go to the village and actually both through the transformation learning how to walk again. There's going to be companies there with different solutions. There's going to be a production space, you know, workspace where Karen can actually you know do is consulting and work on the side and you know place for individuals and families alike to be there.
[29:05] SPEAKER_04: So, Karen tell what are your comments about a purpose built village that helps augment human performance.
[29:15] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I see I see this coming in some ways, whether it's in like a downtown city environment or more out in the farm area.
[29:27] SPEAKER_00: You can have like an apartment building based one or it's a bit more open on a large piece of land. It might be an easier way to start.
[29:35] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, being able to move around in an easy way where it's hopefully relatively quiet. There's convenient elevators are ways to get up and down.
[29:44] SPEAKER_00: So, I want you to grow your own food engaging with community members, being able to work together and build stuff.
[29:53] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean a lot of people's people's purpose is having a passion and drive for something in the future.
[30:00] SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people's process or some injuries get isolated often either in their house or in their local.
[30:10] SPEAKER_00: It could be a hundred meters of where they live, but they know you.
[30:14] SPEAKER_00: And yeah, yeah, really knocking up and doing engagement with anyone inside that space can be very lending.
[30:20] SPEAKER_00: So, trying to bring a bunch of these people together that want to build and grow seems like a good idea.
[30:26] SPEAKER_04: I love it and serve millions of people who know if we can catch them when they've experienced paralysis early.
[30:33] SPEAKER_04: The chances of being able to you know, reaching the brain to be able to walk even unassisted is much higher if we have a community like this dedicate.
[30:47] SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely. Yeah, the rehab center I went to didn't even have an XOC available.
[30:51] SPEAKER_00: So, if you had a minor injury, you chances of recovery would go up quite drastically if you had a good XOC available.
[30:58] SPEAKER_00: And obviously a much less severe injury. I've got one of the highest severe disease damage to a spinal cord.
[31:05] SPEAKER_04: So, I just was a recap building a purpose village is in our agenda.
[31:12] SPEAKER_04: That's what future bill does. We help sort of shape and project manage the capital raising, the getting the idea from ideas to actually implementation.
[31:22] SPEAKER_04: So, if anybody is inclined whether you are sort of a philanthropist on the human cause or your company who sees the business case for introducing this or purely a host community that wants to be on the world map or augmenting human performance and being like sort of the birthplace of a community like this.
[31:47] SPEAKER_04: We'd love to hear from you. So, alive at futureville dot com that's if you are sorry if you you are V I L E dot com is a great way to connect with them.
[31:59] SPEAKER_04: So, I'm not, but I also want to talk about road show and another major hurdle for Karen is testing different XO skeletons right now.
[32:14] SPEAKER_04: There's a whole lot of red tape as far as health care approvals in order to get to work there. So, even just helping people imagine a different future and and actually taking the steps to test different products is actually a barrier right now.
[32:33] SPEAKER_04: So, you know, here and being the stimulus for this idea is tell us a little bit about the road show idea and what we would love to help bring to a much larger.
[32:48] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I imagine most people process first of all, never tried an XO suit and most of the main on the one about them that they exist or how it would change their life.
[33:02] SPEAKER_00: So, the idea was to bring a variety of potential XO suits out to where people are.
[33:09] SPEAKER_00: It's great when they're they're all clustering in a big city, but sometimes they're in smaller cities too.
[33:15] SPEAKER_00: And basically, a lot of them will try one of these XO suits and petition for themselves to even get the insurance to come in and help with it or find methods to communicate the fact that one for themselves.
[33:29] SPEAKER_00: Seems like a good community effort overall.
[33:34] SPEAKER_00: You can bring down the cost from you, millions of dollars per person to even enter a million dollars.
[33:42] SPEAKER_00: That seems like a big impact.
[33:45] SPEAKER_04: And so, just the call to action here is, you know, let's take technologies on the road.
[33:52] SPEAKER_04: We want to hear from manufacturers, potential distributors, which might be healthcare providers, or even just champions like Karen, who would be interested in bringing these skeletons to their community, getting pass the rate of and making it happen in their community.
[34:10] SPEAKER_04: We want to hear from you and we want you to submit your ideas, got an open source platform and we are inviting people to contribute their ideas.
[34:21] SPEAKER_04: And you part of the road show and we will provide those links at the end of the show.
[34:28] SPEAKER_04: But, you know, this started as just you and I, Karen, and I just said, you know what, this is an amazing person who has so much to contribute in the world.
[34:39] SPEAKER_04: And I just feel like I can help get you an XO skeleton suit and I heard it through this public relations, can we can help you do that.
[34:47] SPEAKER_04: Really, what pathways do you see that have you created for yourself to get one step closer to getting an own 20 years of skeleton?
[34:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
[35:01] SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to continue with the company that I was running at the time, injury in order to self fund one.
[35:08] SPEAKER_00: And that remains difficult to do trying to engage with friends and family in order to raise up money to get some and then also just continue to work in other ways.
[35:21] SPEAKER_00: That I've used in the past so advising or consulting.
[35:25] SPEAKER_00: And it remains difficult to monthly cost of paralysis, seeing to always be what if her money I can potentially save and equipment for capitors.
[35:42] SPEAKER_00: Right, you've got to buy mobility accessories like real chairs and keep them repaired and then if you want to take anything for paying like CBD at cost lot.
[35:52] SPEAKER_00: So yeah, even XO is pretty pricey and then being maintained and care for properly.
[36:00] SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it's like a whole other thing.
[36:04] SPEAKER_04: But you do have at least one big fundraising initiative on the go, right, which is again, something that by necessity, you've had to let go of or have purposely function in your tiny house right now.
[36:20] SPEAKER_04: So is it for sale?
[36:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, definitely trying to sell it.
[36:27] SPEAKER_00: Posting it online, I maybe need to update those postings.
[36:30] SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure anyone is interested in it.
[36:32] SPEAKER_00: It's on YouTube if you search my name and the tiny house.
[36:36] SPEAKER_00: Or if you want to email me and connect and learn about this and some of it.
[36:40] SPEAKER_00: It's located near Toronto right now in Ontario.
[36:44] SPEAKER_00: So anyone in like North America, I guess could really get to it if they wanted to.
[36:48] SPEAKER_00: It could be brought over to like a PC or kept there.
[36:52] SPEAKER_00: But it's basically a self-contained house and it's about 95% complete.
[36:59] SPEAKER_00: It needs a little bit of completion, but it's 99 square feet.
[37:03] SPEAKER_00: It's got a wet room and a kitchen and an elevator bed.
[37:07] SPEAKER_00: And we took a long time to design and build and your story all made it.
[37:12] SPEAKER_00: So if anyone's interested in that, I would feel free to reach out.
[37:16] SPEAKER_04: And I just want to emphasize here and from your friend and colleagues point of view that, you know,
[37:25] SPEAKER_04: here and his in his mind, you know, super independent.
[37:29] SPEAKER_04: And while you have a condition, and I'm calling it a temporary condition,
[37:34] SPEAKER_04: because I'm pretty sure we're going to get you an exoskeleton.
[37:37] SPEAKER_04: But this, this condition, which is keeping you mobile right now, he's one of the most,
[37:44] SPEAKER_04: you know, inspirational people that I've met in self-serving.
[37:49] SPEAKER_04: And so I would love to see you find a buyer for this tiny house.
[37:53] SPEAKER_04: Just going to put a big chunk of money aside for you to save up for it.
[37:58] SPEAKER_04: And maybe perhaps a down payment.
[38:00] SPEAKER_04: You know, let's talk about all the pathways, the possibility of getting this exoskeleton.
[38:05] SPEAKER_04: And maybe it would be enough of a down payment for somebody to finance the remainder of it.
[38:09] SPEAKER_04: Or send us, you know, some of the vendors that we're going to be showcasing on the, on the road show, we imagine, you know,
[38:17] SPEAKER_04: you're the perfect test pilot as, and we need to whether champions like you,
[38:21] SPEAKER_04: be able to take on the road and showcase the amazing experience that it would be,
[38:28] SPEAKER_04: with an exoskeleton in life versus with the out ones.
[38:33] SPEAKER_04: So these are just a few of the ways that we imagine, and we've opened up to the possibility of getting,
[38:39] SPEAKER_04: you know, exoskeleton.
[38:40] SPEAKER_04: And then scaling this same experience for millions of other people.
[38:45] SPEAKER_04: So we would love to have you contribute,
[38:48] SPEAKER_04: we'll put all of the calls to action at the end of the podcast,
[38:51] SPEAKER_04: but if you could, if you could leave our audience with some inspiring thoughts,
[38:58] SPEAKER_04: what, what would you like to say?
[39:04] SPEAKER_01: That's a good question for inspiring thoughts.
[39:09] SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I was actually just thinking of something, and I've planned for God.
[39:16] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, life is very difficult for all kinds of people all over the world.
[39:23] SPEAKER_00: Obviously, with the type of injury I have, it makes life more difficult compared to how I was progressing before,
[39:31] SPEAKER_00: and where I may have been now without it.
[39:33] SPEAKER_00: But for some of the other people in the world, it's done enough,
[39:38] SPEAKER_00: and I didn't have difficulty to their life, that they're not even,
[39:42] SPEAKER_00: to the point where they may be able to sit here for an hour and record a podcast like this,
[39:47] SPEAKER_00: I'm having too much pain or trauma or PTSD.
[39:51] SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that goes undelt with.
[39:53] SPEAKER_00: It's pretty hard to speak out about it and talk about what's going wrong in your life.
[40:00] SPEAKER_00: Most people get negative feedback from the people around them, unfortunately,
[40:04] SPEAKER_00: even if they're family or friends in some new ways.
[40:07] SPEAKER_00: So it's hard to talk about.
[40:09] SPEAKER_00: And if I guess the more people talk about it, it'll normalize it a bit more,
[40:13] SPEAKER_00: and it's making more comfortable.
[40:15] SPEAKER_04: So I want to acknowledge your bravery today, because I know we even had like old words,
[40:20] SPEAKER_04: you know, in card symbols to say, oh, we have to pause,
[40:23] SPEAKER_04: and because it's not a great set.
[40:25] SPEAKER_04: And so I do not want to underestimate the effort and your contribution to what's happened.
[40:32] SPEAKER_04: And we are one step closer to enabling augmented human performance for millions of people around the world.
[40:40] SPEAKER_04: It always starts with one step here in your inspiration.
[40:46] SPEAKER_04: Thank you for joining us on the podcast today.
[40:48] SPEAKER_04: And I look forward to seeing all of our calls to action being some momentum.
[40:55] SPEAKER_04: And for you to make people false.
[40:57] SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
[40:58] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was great talking to you.
[40:59] SPEAKER_00: If anyone wants to get in contact with me, training those things,
[41:04] SPEAKER_00: I have an email that is email curin at pm.me, e-m-a-i-l-k-i-e-r-a-n-e-m-d.
[41:14] SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
[41:15] SPEAKER_03: Karen, thanks so much.
[41:16] SPEAKER_03: We'll see you again soon.
[41:18] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. See you. Bye.
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