'I had always wanted to be an inventor'
"From about the age of 4 or 5 years I old, I started saying, 'Mum, I'm just going to be an inventor in the shed at the bottom of your back garden.'
"Since then, I've always made things, invented things... always setting traps around the house. I think that was the early sign of a science or engineering type background."
20 or so years later, Liberty Foreman, 29, is now the co-founder of a cancer screening tech company, DynamX Medical, which she started after completing a PhD.
But education up until university had been a struggle at times.
Speaking on 成人论坛 Radio 5 Live's Million by 30 with Sean Farrington podcast, she said: "At 10, I realised just how far behind I was.
"I started to fall asleep in the lessons because I couldn't concentrate.
"I remember we were learning about the 10 times table and I cried because I didn't know how it worked, and I couldn't understand it. I had a different way of learning to everybody else."
"I didn't want people to think I was a failure."
She told the 成人论坛 that teachers thought she might not be able to sit GCSEs or A-levels, but that only made her determined to succeed.
"I really enjoyed proving people wrong."
Fast forward a few years, and Liberty passed her school exams, went on to complete a university degree in genetics, and set her sights on a PhD in programming.
"People always ask me 'how are you so resilient?' and I'm not," she said.
"I always rely on myself."
While doing her PhD, she started taking entrepreneurship classes, to the bemusement of her friends and colleagues in the department.
"I told them I found it interesting; maybe I could be one?"
While she was working on her PhD, she started looking at infrared technology used in cancer screening. And from there, the idea for her business was born.
She said she was glad to have taken those classes in entrepreneurship.
"There's a huge, huge difference between organcially growing a company that can generate revenue, and a life science company, which is totally pre-revenue, and requires millions and millions of pounds to get anywhere.
"You need a couple of million in the bank, or you can't really start anything."
Liberty said she started pitching to potential investors through competitions, targeting investment banks and major pharmaceutical firms.
"I will always be nervous pitching. One was in front of 100 to 200 people over a dinner... and that's not the scariest pitch."
It has paid off. The company, she said, is now valued in its "multimillions" and has raised millions in investment.
"I'm dead proud of what I've achieved now."
She said she will get the business to a "sustainable" point and then move on to "something else" - coming full circle and starting her own school.
"It will be centered around vocational-type learners... people who don't necessarily learn in the rote sense.
"I've had this idea since I was 18, and I always said 'I'll do it when I'm around 40', so I've got ten years to prep for it."
