This proposal has taken over two years to arrive at its present state. Its origins lie in a document submitted to a Federal M.P. two years ago. This was after the accident, but before I was aware of my injury. The document was a very poorly written. Atrocious is a better word for it. There was no response.

The second iteration of the proposal occurred over a year ago. This version was presented to an Ottawa area non-profit in January 2013. It then morphed into a third iteration with a slightly different focus. This third version was distributed in early spring of 2013. Slightly later in the spring of 2013, I underwent a personal crisis occasioned by the recognition of my injury as being chronic with further recovery and improvement being very slow. This was extremely difficult to accept.

The fourth iteration was attempted in June 2013. Since I was unable to fully accept the low likelihood of any further improvement, I worked very hard to “bulldoze” my way to recovery. Needless to say, this attempt resulted in little positive change. My exertions did serve to further define the nature and scope of the project and I managed to complete a document package which I proposed to send out for review. Fortunately, I erred and nothing was distributed.

This fifth iteration draws on elements of each of the prior attempts and has been worked on intermittently since June / July 2013. It is a better, more polished proposal, but getting this far has required a significant investment of time and effort.

Document creation has forced reluctant acceptance of the fact that, even should the proposal result in a functioning social enterprise, I may lack the range of abilities required to manage the resulting organization. This too has been very hard to accept. I am able to perform, but in a limited way, and that limited performance remains very slow. Exceedingly slow. Glacially slow. Embarrassingly slow.

My abilities, or the lack of them, do not negate the fact that there exists a need for the type of facility described in this proposal. This is especially true given that this form of injury has the potential to rob young TBI victims of any means of active participation in the normal life of the community and will likely confine them to a social ghetto for the balance of their natural life. My lack of abilities also does not undermine the basic message that there exists the potential for significant spin-off benefits associated with the creation of an organization which participates in, and extends, Ottawa’s capabilities in an emergent market derived from the intersection of technological innovation and cognitive research.

 

 February 24th, 2015 Update

This proposal arrived in its final form in January 2014. Around that time, I attempted to introduce it to an Ottawa area non-profit service provider and suffered a severe rebuff. My doctors advised that I was not yet ready to undertake the work required to move the proposal forward. The project has been left dormant for the past year.

I now appear to have improved to the point that I am once again attempting to introduce the proposal and seek its implementation.