NuroHero
At a glance
Before I co-founded Cohesion, I (Harry) co-created a social enterprise called NuroHero during my undergrad at the University of Adelaide. At its core, NuroHero aimed to challenge stigma and create meaningful opportunities for young people with disability—particularly around education, work, and creativity.
Although the initiative has since wrapped up, the values it instilled still shape the work I do today at Cohesion. Here’s a quick look back at what we built under NuroHero, and how each project approached technology and inclusion in unique ways.
Virtual Gardens: Exploration into Tech-Enabled Accessibility
NuroHero’s first project emerged through the 2020 Australian eChallenge, winning $10,000 Biogen for an idea that blended immersive VR-tech with real-world outcomes.
We worked with young people with muscular dystrophy (MD) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) to co-design virtual community gardens using Minecraft and 360° video. The concept was simple: let participants design a garden digitally, then translate that into a real-life garden. We partnered with the University of Adelaide’s to use their Waite community gardens. We also partnered with agricultural immersive tech company ThinkDigital and innovation consultants More Space for Light to make the project as engaging as possible for participants.
It taught us a lot about co-design, inclusion, and how technology can give people new ways to create if adapted to fit needs of users.
Ice-Cream Flavours & Food Science
After our virtual garden pilot we partnered with Hokey Pokey Stirling, a local ice creamery in the Adelaide hills, to run another workshop. Young people with disability—and their friends or siblings—joined in to learn food science, experiment with flavours, and then create their own signature scoops.
Over the 2022 summer, Hokey Pokey sold the winning flavours in-store, with 20% of proceeds going onto fund the next project.
Kids Design Cups
Our last major program was a partnership with Cup & Carry (part of the Detmold Group), focusing on branding, storytelling, and takeaway coffee.
We created an e-learning module that guided young people through the basics of branding and graphic design. Participants experimented with different art techniques and could submit cup designs. Cup & Carry selected a winner, and their cup was printed and distributed to cafés across Adelaide.
The cup featured a QR code that told the story of its designer—highlighting the creativity and capability of young people with disability rather than it being about charity. Alternative formats were encouraged, such as QR codes linking to audio poems for participants with visual impairments.
The Future of Work & Disability: Research with JFM Fund
In 2023, NuroHero conduced a research grant from the Julia Farr MS McLeod Benevolent Fund, exploring how emerging technologies and workplace trends shape employment opportunities for people with disability.
The research looked into:
How AI is used in recruitment (and the risks of bias)
How remote work and assistive tech can boost inclusion
Where the gig economy may leave people behind
What businesses and policymakers can do to close the employment gap
This work helped lay the intellectual foundation for the kind of thinking we now apply at Cohesion. You can read the full report here.