Leanne Whitehouse is on a mission and she's making up for lost time.
From the kitchen table at her home in Tweed Heads, New South Wales, she is cooking up a plan to bring two worlds together: the public and the brain injured, after she waited 25 years for her own diagnosis.
"For a person on the street, they can look at you and go: 'Oh, you're not disabled, there's nothing wrong with you, you're high functioning,' Leanne said.
Leanne lives with an acquired brain injury after being involved in a car accident as a sleeping passenger.
At the time, she was found to have bruising to the stem of the brain, which was left untreated for 25 years.
"I was basically told there's nothing we can do, go home, get married, have children and have a happy life."
Lost years
Leanne was left to navigate life without support until a psychologist spotted the signs of an acquired brain injury.
She considers the 25 years without treatment as a major lost opportunity but is determined to move forward and help bridge a communication gap.
"We're about to launch Ability ID, which is a program for people with a disability that are vulnerable," she said.
It is a little identification card that gives information so the public can help the person in the case of an emergency.
The card explains the person's invisible disability, such as autism, dementia or an acquired brain injury, and has a QR code that can be scanned to contact the person's support workers.
Leanne said it was important to be patient and allow people with a brain injury time to answer a question.
"One of the main things that people don't understand is it takes a brain injured person three times as long to do things and the processing is a little bit slow," she said.
"The cards are about being understood, completely understood."
Discovering innovators
Leanne's venture is the result of a Carers Queensland microbusiness program on the Gold Coast and Ipswich which aims to discover and support entrepreneurs living with a disability.
Carers Queensland general manager Jocelyn Wills said the entire community had a role to play in ensuring people with disability reached their full potential.
"Not only does this [program] provide a great opportunity for people with disability to earn an income, but it helps to increase their self-confidence and allows them to achieve greater independence," Ms Wills said.
Brad Horrocks is using the skills he mastered as an international corporate high-flyer to improve the online experience of people "who don't fit the mould".
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995, Brad now uses an electric wheelchair with on-call support on the Gold Coast.
"In five to seven years, I went from a fully mobile triathlete to basically being wheelchair bound," Brad said.
Brad has teamed up with his former support worker, Yivan Cable, to create a yet-to-be-launched social media platform called Veracity People.
Its purpose is to create a community for people who feel like they don't belong.
"Social media is great but it does not allow people that don't fit a standard mould to interact together properly," he said.
"Our target is to provide a platform whereby people are non-judgemental, honest and kind."
Helping others
Brad is the first to admit he would never have come up with an altruistic business venture before multiple sclerosis took hold.
"I am a much, much better person, a much better human being," he said.
"I've got knowledge to be able to create something that can help people rather just make money.
"The difference is huge and it's no longer about me, me, me.
"It is all about other people now [and] how can we help benefit society in general?"
