From Fashion Model to Neuroscientist: Building Technology That Truly Improves Lives

What does it take to reinvent yourself and build technology that makes a real difference?

In this episode of the Women in Tech Podcast, hosts Gaby de Jong and Mariska Kleiss welcome Faviola Dadis, Founder & CEO of BrainBoostXR, together with Lea Lieke Lamb, Chapter Lead of Women in Tech Netherlands.

Faviola shares her remarkable journey from international fashion model to neuroscientist and health tech entrepreneur. Together, they discuss how AI and Extended Reality are transforming cognitive rehabilitation for people with acquired brain injuries, the challenges of building and scaling a health tech startup and why diverse perspectives are essential for creating technology that truly serves people.

In this episode, you'll discover:
• How Brain Boost XR is transforming cognitive rehabilitation through AI and Extended Reality.
• Why diverse teams create better technology.
• The importance of visible role models for women and girls in tech.
• Why collaboration, not competition, is key to building a more inclusive technology ecosystem.

If you're passionate about technology, healthcare, entrepreneurship or innovation, this episode is for you.

Special thanks to our partners NoCowboys for their professional production, podcast studio and amazing crew and H20 Esports Campus for sponsoring the Women in Tech Podcast and supporting our mission to empower 5 million women and girls in STEAM by 2030.

Follow us:
Women in Tech Netherlands: Women in Tech® Netherlands: About | LinkedIn
BrainBoostXR: BrainBoostXR: Posts | LinkedIn
NoCowboys: NoCowboys: Overview | LinkedIn
H20 Esports Campus: H20 Event location - Tech Hub - Rabo Esports Stadium: Posts | LinkedIn

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Welcome to the Women in Tech podcast, where we spotlight innovators, leaders, and change makers that shape the future of technology in the Netherlands. Each episode brings you inspiring conversations with women who are breaking barriers, driving innovation, and creating meaningful impact across industries. We are your hosts, Gabi De Jong and Mariska Kleis, and we are delighted to be able to bring you this podcast through our partnership with the media company No Cowboys. We're sitting in the H20 studio, professional studio, very proud to be here in Permarent, part of the esports campus. We also want to give a big shout out to Matthijs Fink because he's the CEO of H20 and he actually set up this synergy with us and has been supporting us to be able to help women take a better position in tech. We're very happy to be doing that today with you. Today we are going to introduce Like, who is our director of Women in Tech, and we have a very inspiring founder and CEO with an amazing and inspiring story as well, Faviola. Over to you, Mariska.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Thank you, Gabi. So, first of all, I have a question for you, Like. Because I'm not aware of everybody already knows Women in Tech Netherlands. Can you please tell us a little bit more about who we are, where we stand for, and what our mission is?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Yeah, of course, thank you so much, Mariska. Yeah, Women in Tech the Netherlands is part of the Global Women in Tech Organization. It's an organization with the headquarters in France. It's got 50 chapters worldwide. And here in the Netherlands, we have our own chapter, and we aim to uh, with all the other chapters, uh, inspire and encourage women in tech. Five million by 2030, that's the goal. Uh and we do it in all kinds of ways with educational programs, uh, empowerment programs, being present at all kinds of events, etc. And we have a wonderful team in the Netherlands of uh 30 uh ladies working real hard. We even have one guy in the team uh working real hard to get uh everything done.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Okay, and can you please explain a little bit more why is it still so important today? Why are we still talking about women and girls in in tech and in and in and in STEM STEAM? How do you call that? Yeah, STEM and STEAM.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

That's art in it. Some people say it should be STEAM, and some people say it should be STEM. Uh, we normally say STEAM because I think art is very important as well. Uh, but why is it still necessary? Yeah, unfortunately, it's still necessary. Um, but I think in a world where technology takes such an important role in mobility, in in politics, in in finance, in in food, in all industries, tech is omnipresent. And since we're as women are like half the population, it's important that we are well presented there and that we have knowledge of what's happening to us, what we can choose from. And unfortunately, that's still not the case. There's still a lot of prejudice, there's still a lot of ideas about what tech is or is not. And uh, we know from all kinds of uh programs that it's very important for young girls, especially already at a young age, to see other women in the field of tech as a role model to encourage them to also choose that path. So there's a lot of reasons why it's still very important to uh to be seen, to have role models. The fabulous uh Faviola who's here today, thank you so much. It's so important that they see that they can be that because if they can't see it, they can't be it. That's what they always say, and I believe that's very much true. And um, it's also important to show the men and the whole world in that sense, also the educational system, uh, to look with a sharper glance at the way that they educate girls and guys. If you look at, for instance, the books for um STEM uh subjects, very often the the real tech uh subjects, there's a boy on the cover of the book. Uh all the examples given are male examples in that sense. Uh so that's something to be aware of in even the little things.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Thank you, Lee. Can I have another question? Because sometimes people think that that since we are women in tech and we're always talking about the difference between women and men, but we are not not against them, isn't it? There are we always invite them to join us and and absolutely true.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

We're we're definitely not against men. We like men, we love men, they do a lot of great things. We're not competing with men, we just want to join them in the world of tech and and know what's going on and have our say and hope that they can see us a little bit more for what we are, what we truly are in tech. So that's the aim. And no, certainly no competition with guys in that sense or no hard feelings or whatever. Uh work together. That's the idea. And we have we have a lot of allies actually. Yeah, like I said, we even have one guy in our team, yeah. But at a lot of events, we see also a lot of guys empowering us, uh, maybe even sometimes too much. We've seen with some events that they say, Oh, we want to be so uh uh um yeah helpful in that sense that we made a separate square for women. We have the main stage, and then there's a separate square for women in AI, women in tech, women in cybersecurity. That's not what we want. We want to be on the main stage. We want to share the space with men and not be separated.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Yeah, and luckily for us, Matthijs really understood that that's uh what we want to do, and that's why we're really happy with the partnership. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very grateful. Deze aflevering wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Studio H20 en No Cowboys Productions. En we moeten echt even zeggen, een studio is fantastisch. De ruimte is super flexibel en je kan je helemaal inrichten en wenden in de stijl van je eigen merk. Wat het echt uniek maakt, is dat ze live geschakeld met meerdere camera's opnemen. De montage gebeurt dus al live tijdens ons gesprek, waardoor er achteraf geen editing meer nodig is. Professioneel, snel en van de allerhoogste kwaliteit. Wil jij dit nou ook inzetten voor jouw bedrijf of organisatie? Wij raden het aan. Kijk voor meer informatie op studioh20.nl.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

So, I think you have a lot of questions also for Faviola, isn't it? I do. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Thank you, Luke. Very interesting to hear what we want to do. Faviola, welcome. We're really happy that you could join us here today. You only heard yesterday, which kind of speaks to how flexible you are and the kind of person you are that you show up here today. I'm really interested, and I'm sure our listeners are also very interested in getting to know you. So, who are you and what work are you doing today? Can you tell us more about it?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Firstly, thank you so much for having me. As you said, it was very last minute. Uh, Mattis just sent me a quick app and said, I need a woman in tech, and you're the woman in tech that I'm looking for. So I mean I'm not always very flexible uh as a woman in tech, an entrepreneur. It's very difficult to find time, but it's also very important to make connections and keep your stakeholders and the people that work with you in a wonderful way, keep them close. So, of course, I was more than happy to join you guys. And I think that the point of this podcast is also extremely important. So shall I start with introducing you, please? A little bit of a long story, but we'll take it easy. So I'm Fabiola Brajardades, and I am the CEO and founder of Brainboost XR. I have a very unconventional journey that I took into the world of technology. If you look at someone in tech, generally you think of a little bit more of a nerdy person. And I am a nerd, let me tell you. I'm a big nerd, but I like to say I'm a cool nerd. So I think that that is something that has always stuck with me. But I had a career, a very successful career, uh, that spanned over 15 years long as a high fashion model. So I traveled the world living out of a suitcase, going to fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, Tokyo, London, New York. And while you might not think that that's connected, I'm going to tell you about the different trajectories of my career that have taken me actually into technology and how I utilize these to my strength instead of to my detriment. Yeah. So after modeling, I also had quite an extensive career in marketing and public relations. And that was in Asia. I've lived in nine different countries. So I will bring you nine different perspectives about how we can look at technology from different cultural points of view. Some people have very high access, but resources are low. Some people don't have access to healthcare. And I've gotten the opportunity to see a lot of this firsthand. Another part of my life was geopolitical lobbying, uh, which was very interesting. And also added to my understanding of how to work with different stakeholders and negotiate. And from all of these experiences, what I drew the most is we tell stories. That's how we connect with people. Technology shouldn't just be a piece of tech for the sake of tech. It should be that tech doesn't work for, you know, the people. We're, you know, we're working with tech. We're the individuals that are driving it. So from my modeling career, what I was drawing upon in all of the countries I was living in was essentially how do we market a brand in a different place? How does a different culture perceive these types of brands? What's important for the culture? And this, I think, really lended strengths to me. I think in the beginning, I was a little bit timid to say, hey, I'm a neuroscientist now, an entrepreneur, but I was also a model for a very long time. I've embraced that completely on Instagram. My handle is neuroscience Barbie. So I've definitely, you know, I've definitely leaned into it by now.

SPEAKER_03 10:14

What made you embrace it and why were you hesitant to tell people that was your background at first?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I think in the beginning, I a lot of women in tech, uh regardless of their background, I think, are being are scared to be taken seriously. Are scared that they won't have a seat at the table as we're, you know, we're trying to make sure that that is happening as much as possible so we can get the balanced opinions that we need. Yep. Um and yeah, from there, I just yeah, I I thought we're gonna have to start again.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

So my question was um, why did you end up embracing it and why didn't you embrace it at the in the first place? There we go. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

You have to edit that.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

That's what they're here for.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

So the reason why I didn't embrace it in the first place was because, as I was thinking, many women in tech are actually, regardless of their background, a little bit timid to have a seat at the table. And in the end, why I did end up embracing it is that I realized I can carve out my own seat at the table. I don't have to be the same as everyone else. I have an unconventional journey. And while that might seem strange to some people, I connect it to everything that I do, especially think about the amount of times that we're looking at a product and we're thinking about how is this going to fit into our lives. For me, it started to make a lot more sense to portray these things from a diverse perspective. So not just from the perspective of men who are, you know, these individuals who have been powerhouses. And, you know, I wouldn't say that it's uh predominantly a male-driven industry, but I would actually.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah, you know, it's the thing. I love the fact that at this period of time it's allowed to, like you as an example, have beauty and brains, as they say. And it's not only a male industry anymore, because uh tech used to be very male-driven, and but it's for like I said in the beginning, it's for the complete society. We're all customers, we're all going to use tech. Absolutely. So we all have to be at that table. So uh yeah, thank you for taking that courage.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Absolutely, thank you. And then um, a little bit more about myself. Uh, I'm a neuroscientist and an entrepreneur. I am a two-time founder, um, and I'm also a patient. So this is something that I think lends very well into the work that I do, not just as a researcher clinician and as an entrepreneur, but to understand things on both sides of the table. So what we really are looking at in the industry that I'm in in neurotechnology, is how do we gain value for everybody? But everyone defines value differently. A patient doesn't live 99% of their life, the hospital. So they need technology that works for them, not people working for the technology itself.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

So I think that that's something that really drove me um into this space was lived experiences. I work specifically with acquired brain injuries, which is an umbrella term that consists of stroke or traumatic brain injuries from accidents or other different events, uh, concussion, brain tumors, a whole host of different neurological problems. And I personally have a chronic rare neurological disease. So I see both sides of the table. And as I mentioned, being a two-time founder, Neuroreality was my first company, and we focused on cognitive rehabilitation of deficits that individuals had after sustaining a brain injury, for example, attention and memory and planning, things like this. But then it became personal when I was diagnosed with my own uh I didn't say coincidental, but maybe it was meant to happen in that way uh with my own tech disease.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

And so for our listeners, you were already working in the field and you were already building tech, and then you were diagnosed yourself.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yes, indeed. And so I was uh in the beginning stages of my field and my bachelor's, I was already working on taking traditional neurological and neuropsychological tests, which are often done in pencil and paper, and translating them into digit versions. Then I actually worked with Gaanvey Bey, our Dutch national football team, on their concussion protocols for sideline testing. Individuals have a lot of headers, then you have to worry about them. They have to step out for a moment, make sure that they're safe to return to play. And then I've always sort of had this unique view about how do we take problems and solve them on a global scale. And we have a huge problem with individuals that have suffered from acquired brain injuries. And yeah, then after studying at Oxford as well, that was a personal experience for me too. I did my master's degree in Oxford in cognitive neuroscience and clinical neuropsychology. I saw so many patients that I worked with experiencing these cognitive problems too. But what I realized after neuroreality was acquired a couple of years ago by a large telehealth provider uh in the United States was that the biggest thing that I noted is that we need to improve quality of life for patients, not just cognition, but that patients really need solutions that give them dignity and independence and allow them to feel like themselves again after such a traumatic event in their life.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Would you say that's a different approach than was traditionally taken to patient care in that area?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Absolutely. So, generally speaking, what I'd like to move away from is a sap shot in the doctor's office, right? I think we've all experienced it that you're having an issue and then you go to the doctor, all of a sudden it's not present, and you're like, but I promise you, this is what is going on. So continuity of care started to become extremely important for me. Uh, when I founded Brainboost XR, that was something that I really wanted to make sure we're creating this very personalized type of medicine, let's say, even though it's digital. We're prescribing digital medication nowadays, which I think is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

But in that sense, it was different from neural reality. And I'm sure I'll tell you more about Brain Boost XR as we move on in the podcast. But my goal also was to tackle the human side of this tech. So not just we're putting individuals into what the status quo would have been. Um instead of doing pencil and paper paradigms, now we're gonna make it a gamified program utilizing extended reality. But it's not just about fun and games, it's about making sure that the individual can return to their life again and leave it lead a productive life in society and connect with individuals again.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Is there also a difference between men and women? Because there's also the this topic that when you go to the doctor, the it's always, you know, it's always based on general for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So actually, you're correct. A lot of the tests that we have what you call normative data on. That's basically we assume that we've done enough testing to represent the entire population. Yep. And a lot of that normative data comes from data sets that are with 50-year-old white men or a lot of these older data sets. Now they're starting to come from college students, a lot of them healthy college students or so on. But um there are differences innately between men and women, far less than you would think when it comes to our brain, actually. Um I think that it's important, as you guys were saying, to include men in the conversation. It's not just that I treat women, but I definitely like to bolster women in this type of environment and setting because we're often overlooked, and I don't think that we should be, not anymore.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

No, yeah. And I just saw res research earlier this year on what happens to female brains when they have their second baby, which was huge. Yes. Yes, so I can imagine it is different for men and women, and we should spend time on that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Exactly. Even though our structures and our functions of our brain are similar, there are experiences that shape what happened to us as women. And that's what changes your brain. That's what makes us all unique. Someone could, for example, a female could have a stroke and a male could have a stroke, the exact same place, the same etiology, have completely different outcomes. So I think that it is important to look at gender differences, but more in the sense of again, how do we all come to the table together instead of having separate places? Of course, I'm a huge advocate of women in STEM. Uh I sat on the Forbes Technology Council as the European representative for women in STEM. And I can tell you that the hundreds of people that I spoke to generally that I advised in the audience were men. There were not very many females that I was advising. So I think that it's also a little bit of let's educate, yep, and let's make sure that men understand. Um, you know, something I think that's funny and I I experience very frequently is my co-founder. He he's a man. And when we walk into somewhere together, generally speaking, they'll want to go and shake his hand first, thinking he's the CEO. And that's just quite typical, I think. Um gender bias is something that we can't get away from. No, but we can do our best absolutely to be recognized and um let the men challenge us for what we're doing. We're we're ready for the challenge. Cool, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Um for our listeners who are not familiar with what you do, can you tell us a little bit more about Brain Boost XR?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Certainly. So, Brain Boost XR, as I said, was born from my own lived uh experiences as a patient, um, and also things that I saw happening around me. So first and foremost, I had seen my my grandmother, my alma, she had a severe stroke and she was not able to access the type of care that she needed. Her physical uh detriment, so physical therapy was quite well taken care of. But unfortunately, she was left with a lot of problems with her memory, with her attention, and so on. I experienced the same thing with my patients working at Oxford. And in the end, what I started asking was what are you doing instead? If you're not being given the correct care that you need, what are you doing? A lot of them were gaming, which I found very interesting hearing, you know, this from individuals that are either going through neurodegenerative diseases like uh dementia or had sustained a stroke or a very serious traumatic brain injury. They were playing games. What kind of games? So lots of little puzzle games, things on their phone that were easy, things on their tablet. And that sort of struck me alongside with the fact that when When I lay in the hospital bed, I like to play games as well. It's not, you know, it's not a fun place to be. And if we can turn something that's difficult into something that's a little bit more fun, I think that's great. So at Brainboost XR, we are an innovative medtech company based in Amsterdam. And what we do is we create extended reality immersive experiences for individuals who have sustained an acquired brain injury, as I was mentioning. And how we do this is utilizing gameplay, we track biomarkers, digital biomarkers from how the patients are responding to the game environment. And eventually this leads to highly personalized care. With these biomarkers, we map them onto digital twins, which is essentially a replica of your current state. And that allows us not only to personalize the game, so to utilize dynamic difficulty progression, which means making the game not too easy, not too hard, making sure that they're all sitting in the right place and being challenged, but also capable of feeling empowered. And then once we have all of these beautiful uh biomarkers that we've collected, we can actually start to understand the profiles of our patient. So how do we personalize their treatment? How do we make sure that we're actually giving them what they need instead of a one size fits all type of approach? And currently, for example, we're working on an attention model on how to help individuals think about when you lose your keys at home and you're trying to everyone has lost their keys recognizable. Or in your bag uh or in your pockets. Yeah. Um, attention is one of the biggest things that we utilize in our life in order to make different cognitive decisions. So we are actually now able to identify different attentional profiles. For example, someone who's fatigued or someone who might have attentional lapses, meaning space out a little bit. We can then adjust the game and tailor their treatment according to these different metrics that we understand.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

And for our listeners, because I have a couple of questions, I can imagine they do too. Can you give a couple of examples of a biomarker? And what does a game look like? What do they experience? What are they actually doing in that in that game? Certainly.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

So a lot of people think that biomarkers have to be these things such as your type of blood or the actual scan that you had on your brain. But a biomarker is anything that is continuously measured. And so sleep, even the hours of sleep, can be a biomarker. We specifically look at things like reaction time. Um we talk about omissions and commissions, so error rates. We look at, I won't get too far into it because of IP, but aside from that, very subtle biomarkers that you wouldn't expect as a researcher, though. I find it very important to take research out of academia and put it into practice. So with regards to everything we do, it is science-based. We look at different biomarkers that are specifically derived from what we call peer-reviewed literature. So from individuals that over decades have done research on these different things. And we say, okay, a stroke survivor could have a score on the game between X and Y. A TBI survivor might have a different score, and then in different profiles as well. So when they go to play the game, it can adapt with them. But then of course, in the end, we have this continual feedback loop because you're not just a static human being, right? You're playing the game continually. So the updates that we have, imagine you're sitting in a VR environment, right? And you have to actually take a lot of things into your design principles and technology for this population as well. You have to make sure that you understand these people can get overstimulated very easily. Um they might even be prone to having seizures. So you have to be very careful and uh design and make sure that your design principles are taking these things into account. Um for the example that I was giving about searching for your keys in one of our game environments, that is indeed what you do. You have a fun way of generally what you would have been doing in your clinical office or your clinician's office, excuse me, would be having a pen and paper and going through some very tedious cognitive exercises for attention. For example, um the D2 test is a very well-known test for attention. And guess what it entails? Crossing out Ds for a very long time on a piece of paper. Um, and then you're specifically looking for Ds with a certain feature and ignoring the distractors. Yeah. So that's what we do in the game as well. But we make it what we call ecologically valid, meaning it has a reason to exist in the real world. And that's how we take gamification. Um, we give individuals rewards, we make sure that then they feel compelled because only about 35% of individuals will actually complete their rehabilitation. But if you're playing a game and you know that you're going to interact with it and be able to level up and utilize all of these different aspects from the reward system that we've developed, it makes it, I think, a lot easier for patients to interact. But our games are based around scenarios that would replicate everyday life settings like shopping in a market, but think more shopping in a market in Tatooine from Star Wars, you know, like not necessarily our normal market. We still need to make it fun. It's, you know, it's a journey for everyone. And the cool thing is um with AI, you also have AI storytelling and gamification now. So the game arc is different for everyone that experiences it. Um another part of what we do, and it's not just frivolously, we have an AI companion because I think if that's something that, oh wow, no, not another AI chatbot. No, we have a very interesting AI companion that also is capable of collecting behavioral biomarkers based upon your vocal tone, your cadence, what you're saying. And then it will give you a score about your emotional status. This is very valuable for clinicians because, as I was saying, we don't want a snapshot in the clinical office. We want continuity of care. Yeah. So in between sessions, that lovely AI companion um is there to support you. You get to have conversations with them, and we also give rewards based upon having specific conversations that can lead the clinician to understand better about what their state of care is. Are they improving? Are there certain things that they need more help with? Because a lot of people also they're sitting there and doing their work and forgetting to tell their clinician, actually, you know, last week I was having a problem with this and this. Patients don't necessarily want to sit in a clinical office, they want the outcomes and the value from what they're doing. And in my opinion, the value for for someone who's suffered something like this is not, oh, I get to use cool technology, but I get to remember my grandchild's name later on. You know, we have to humanize these types of experiences.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

I'm very, very impressed by what you're building, but also very curious to know how the adoption is by clinicians. So I can imagine if you're talking about VR, AI, they might not all be super excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So in the beginning, I think that there was a lot of proof to do, and I did that with neuroreality. I always was saying, you know, I'm I'm making this a neuroreality, you know, this is my new reality. This is what I believe other people should, you know, be paying attention to. Um it was difficult. Neuroreality was founded in 2017, and I had already begun working on AI and studying and learning about AI from 2014 onwards. So it wasn't necessarily that it was a hype for me when it came about. It was something that I was already very much immersed in as a neuroscientist. And I think that at first, clinicians were very skeptical about utilizing these types of technology for rehabilitation because people can be dogmatic in the medical industry and field. They can think we've done this for a long, long time in this specific way. Why should we do it differently? And what we could show them through piloting and through doing a lot of different controlled testing with patients is that there is actually something working. So that's, I mean, as I was saying, everyone defines value differently. A patient is going to define their value differently than what a clinician is going to. But we never want to replace clinicians. That's not our point. Our point is to give them tools and help them assist patients to have these better overall healthcare outcomes when they're not sitting in the clinic with someone helping them. Um I think that XR itself, so AR is very well utilized in surgeries, XR is being quite well utilized in rehabilitation. But cognitive problems, that's a little bit more new to the table. Um although now, after years, because we're almost 10 years down the line from neuroreality and in founding Brainboost XR, I don't notice that it's the same friction anymore. A lot of different people have proven um, in terms of relaxation and pain management, in terms of treating PTSD, that virtual reality has a seat, you know, for being a technology that is very useful in helping individuals uh experience not only a more human way to engage with technology, because it is more human. If you try VR for the first time, I would I love watching people try it for the first time. Most of my patients are not as familiar with tech, right? And they are a little bit older. So if I'm talking with someone that's 60 years old and doesn't necessarily have that much, 60s young now, by the way, you know, as if you know, but um, doesn't have that much technological experience, they put on the VR headset, they really get it quickly. It's very intuitive. And clinicians really appreciate that they don't have to take so much time to explain this is how the games on the tablet work, these are all the things that you're gonna push these buttons and this and that. It's actually pretty easy. You have the VR set. Um, in our game, you can choose to use the controller or just gaze, literally, just gaze in an object and it will select the object for you. Um there's there's a lot of different things that we had to do first to prove why this actually is beneficial. And now I don't think that there's that much that I have to prove anymore, which is wonderful. Um, I think that was really nice that someone said to me, and that's that's where the quote, you know, you've earned your place, the table came from. Was I was humbled to have been invited to do another speaking engagement. Um, and I said, you know, I I really appreciate that. And the gentleman had said back to me, Well, you've been in this industry for a very long time. You've certainly earned your place here.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

So wow, that's a huge compliment.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

It was for me a huge, huge compliment coming from someone who has encountered and met so many different founders and entrepreneurs and people working in our space in medical technology and especially digital medical technology to hear that um it was for me a big compliment. It showed that, hey, I'm actually doing what I want to do and I'm doing a good job. So that's something to be proud of. Um I can be very hard on myself. I think that a lot of women are hard on themselves when it comes to being in an industry that we're not always, I wouldn't say that we're not welcome, but that we're a little bit more marginalized.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

We have to show our results and then be respected instead of being trusted to be respected. And in that, in that uh spirit, you have a lot of experience not in the tech world and you came into the tech world. I'm really uh curious for all of the students and all of the professionals, founders, women listening, what would be the advice you would give them?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Don't wait to start. Everyone thinks that there's someone out there that's more well prepared than they are. And the reality is that your unique experiences are actually what give you your strengths. So, as I was telling you, you know, my modeling career might not you you would think, okay, well, how does that connect to technology? Well, actually, I'm sitting there and I'm learning about branding and I'm learning about how do we market this in China as compared to the United States, as compared to the Netherlands. Um think about your background as a strength. Not everyone comes from a conventional, I'm going to go to university and study engineering, and then later on I'm going to go into technology and this very specific field. A lot of the time things come about best because it's from learned experiences and personal experiences. I think that's a way to really make sure that women understand that they can carve out their own space. Because while it could still be looked at as predominantly male industry, as we know and we've discussed, I think the value that we bring as females with our different perspectives is huge. And again, just something that's completely outside of our realm of what we're talking about. But I remember hearing a conversation on how hard hats, you know, helmets for individuals that are doing construction are designed.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

They're designed for men. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

That's so true.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

And actually, women use children's hard hats. So there's a big issue there that needs to change. Yeah. If there's women that are presenting their ideas and taking charge and saying, you know what, I've thought about this in a different way, then essentially we're going to have better outcomes for everybody in many different industries, not just in medtech where that's true.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Because I know that even for the police, the vests that they wearing they don't fit correctly.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

All designed for men. Yeah. Seatbelts and cars. Seatbelts and cars, indeed. Yeah. And this is now starting to change. It's only now starting to change. And as I said, I think that these are things that researchers look at in academia. But if we don't, as entrepreneurs, take the time to put those things out there and have them adopted. What's you know? What's the point of keeping this on these wonderful papers that we publish?

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Oh, right. Because an entrepreneurial question, if I may, because you started a company. Did you get funding? And did you try to get the funding or did you let the guys in the team? Oh, God, no.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

I love uh I love mentorship actually. So I very frequently mentor um and let my mentees mentor me as well. I think that's important, this cross-discussion. But fundraising is something that a founder is always doing. Even when you're not looking for money, you're always fundraising. And so for Neurality, um, we had several grants and we also had venture capital funding for that. Um that was a whole different thing. I won't get into the investor relationships, except just to tell you that women, when you go out there, know that it's long-term marriage with an investor. And if you have some relationship problems, you better find what those are early on so that you can solve them or leave the relationship. And I learned a lot from my funding uh and the way that investors worked with me as a female as well. Uh, I would hear really horrible things said to me, quite abusive, actually, that I know would never have been said to a man. Or, I mean, I'm in my 40s now, but I look quite young. Um, so there's also a lot of ageism that comes along with it too, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, with Brainboost XR. So we call them bootstrapped beginnings. I decided that I was going to, and my co-founder, we were going to put in our own capital. And we were going to create the product that we wanted, that we found valuable, that we worked with patients to create, that we worked with clinicians to create, that we work with researchers to create, and then take it to a venture capital firm. Because at that point, something to pay. Exactly. We don't, you know, we don't need to prove to them. Actually, it's funny, individuals often think founders think, oh, we need an investor. We need money. We need money. Yes, of course we do. But investors need us too, because they can't create any kind of value for themselves and get back their eight to ten multiples that they'd like to have from their investment if they don't have great solutions. And you see more and more VC firms that are actually focused on female founders. I think that says something that says that we're underrepresented. You know, it's, you know, it's a shame that we are. Uh, but I think that these incentives that people are driving towards making sure that we have those opportunities, whether it be via funding uh or yeah, just being us being uniquely and unapologetically a female in our industry.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah. And to that extent, what are some of the changes in the industry that you really want to see for women?

SPEAKER_00 41:04

I would like to see more women being educated and literate about technology, understanding how AI works, not just trusting it blindly as a tool that is a fun thing. Let's use ChatGPT or Claude, um, and then blindly trust everything that it says. Uh, I think that goes for everybody, actually. But for women, I think that it's very important that we gain more visibility. I think that's something that I really hope for women in tech more. That's why we're all sitting here together, right? Us us for females talking about things that are extremely important in the world. So I hope for young women, um, I especially I like to do a lot of volunteer work and mentoring with girls in tech because it starts at a young age, right? If they see other individuals like myself and like yourselves working in the industry, then it makes it a lot less scary to take those steps yourself. So I hope that girls and women in tech can start to see themselves as extremely valuable individuals with different perspectives that are going to make huge changes in the world, just like their counterparts. Just like you.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Yeah. I I hope that I am. Yeah, you're definitely a role model. Thank you so much for your story. We've really enjoyed listening to you. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Kim.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

So, Lika, last question for you as a director of Women in Tech Netherlands. What are your hopes for the next generation?

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Well, like we discussed here, I hope that they look at the role models and uh understand that this world is also for them and that it's not a scary world, but they just have to dive into it and help each other. As women, we should really, excuse me, really should help each other and uh listen to each other's stories, take each other's advice, and uh I hope for them to strive so that it's not only smart technology but also wise technology, because it's in every part of our society, and I think uh it's very important. And I I hope that they all join women in tech. We celebrate our seventh birthday this month. Uh, you've all been there from the beginning, uh, seven years. Uh, we've got 10,000 followers on the LinkedIn plus uh it's a great uh community and we can learn from each other. So I hope that uh that they'll join and that they'll stick to each other.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

I think the community part is one of the most important things you just mentioned because I think it previously was that women are quite competitive with each other because we want to get our place at the table, right? Yeah, and now I don't think that's the case anymore.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

I think that females are I remember being in a room with only men, and then there one other female comes in to, you know. Immediately there's a comparison. Yeah, why are they women?

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Why are we doing that? I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

I I totally don't expect but I always love it when there are at least five, four or five women, because then the comparison is not so one-on-one. Yeah, and you become a group and and you don't have to fear each other or you're not competitors anymore.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

It's also a mindset breaking away from the patriarchical idea that once there is another woman, she's a threat to you. So it's breaking away from that mindset, actually. Uh empowered women empower women.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And then we're talking about ecosystems. We're sitting in an ecosystem right now that maybe people think of as an esports stadium or primarily with gaming, but Mattis has created this whole ecosystem where women are welcome. Yep. We definitely have a place here, and we have an amazing opportunity where there are innovators, entrepreneurs, people that are within gaming, but also completely outside of gaming. And as I walk around the campus, it's nice to see other females here. Um and I saw girly girls, actually, to be honest. You know, it sounds silly, but I saw girls dressed beautifully. And, you know, so true. Um, so it was it's really nice. I think that that's a lot of the way that I think about building Brainboost XR in general, um, is through an ecosystem. And that's a thread that ties from our entire conversation back to to our where our sponsors are and where we're actually sitting right now.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yeah, yeah, so nice. And Lika, if you say for women in tech Netherlands, can you say it in one sentence? It's really that's really from the marketing perspective. Can you explain the company what's the company in one sentence?

SPEAKER_02 45:30

We aim to reach out to girls and women uh to encourage them and to make them enthusiastic about tech, but also to create the absolute horrible word awareness amongst men, uh uh amongst companies and organizations, also politics, uh, to see that the half of the population is women and we want just to be there at the table with them.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

Cool, thank you. So, Lika, thank you for sharing your perspective and uh for the work you're doing to build a more inclusive technology ecosystem. And thank you to our listeners for joining us to another episode of the Women in Tech podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe, share the episode with your network, and join us again as we continue highlighting the women shaping the future through technology.