Neurofenix is the first Inventor Prize winner

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Jane Lambert

In "Harnessing the Potential of the UK's Home Grown Inventors" - The Government's Proposed Industrial Strategy, 24 Jan 2017 I noted that part of the government's industrial strategy is

"....... seek to harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user led innovation by launching a challenge prize programme. This prize, which will be piloted through the NESTA Challenge Prize Centre, will help inform our support to the ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ operating in companies and at home – such as through supporting enabling environments, incubators and maker spaces."

The competition was launched in August 2017 and received over 180 entries.  A shortlist of 10 finalists was announced in NESTA Inventor Shortlist on 31 Jan 2018.  Each of those finalists received £5,000 and mentoring from Barclay's Eagle Labs to perfect their inventions.

The shortlisted inventions have now been evaluated and Neurofenix Limited' is the winner.   Its invention  is the Neuroball  which encouragea stroke patients to perform hand and arm exercises and thereby recover their manual dexterity.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or inventions generally should call me on 020 7404 5252 or message me through my contact form.

NESTA Inventor Prize Shortlist

Jane Lambert

In "Harnessing the Potential of the UK's Home Grown Inventors" - The Government's Proposed Industrial Strategy 24 Jan 2017 I blogged about the government's commitment is to:

"....... seek to harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user led innovation by launching a challenge prize programme. This prize, which will be piloted through the NESTA Challenge Prize Centre, will help inform our support to the ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ operating in companies and at home – such as through supporting enabling environments, incubators and maker spaces."

I reported on progress in The Inventors Prize 2017  29 June 2017.

In Congratulations to the Inventor Prize finalists 26 Jan 2018, NESTA reports that it had received 180 applications from across the UK which were judged by a panel of 8 judges (one of whom was Claire Mitchell of Chillipeeps who had addressed both the Leeds and Sheffield inventors clubs) in accordance with the following criteria: innovation, insight and impact, quality and safety and market potential and feasibility.

A shortlist of 10 finalists have now been selected and Emma Renowden has published their names and particulars of their inventions in Congratulations to the Inventor Prize finalists! 26 Jan 2018 on the Inventor Prize website.

According to Ms Renowden, each of those finalists will receive £5,000 and mentoring from Barclay's Eagle Labs to perfect their inventions. This seems to come close to an accelerator for inventors which I discussed in No Invention should be left behind here - the Case for Inventor Academies 27 Jan 2018. The winner, who will be chosen in September, will receive £50,000 and the runners up prizes of £5,000 and £15,000 towards the development of their inventions.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or invention  generally should call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or message me through my contact form.

The Inventor Prize 2017

Jane Lambert

When NESTA announced on 24 Jan 2017 that it "was working with BEIS to pilot an ‘inventor’ prize that will inspire and harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user-led innovation" (see Zofia Jackiewicz Announcing the Inventor Prize on 24 June 2017 Inventor Prize website), I promised to do everything I could to support the initiative (see NESTA's Inventor Prize 26Jan 2017 NIPC Yorkshire).

Today NESTA appeals to the public for help to "refine the prize design through a better understanding of the support inventors need" (see  The Inventor Prize wants to hear from you 19 June 2017).  As I noted in my article "the Inventor Prize, which opens for entries later this summer, is a challenge prize pilot that aims to inspire and harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors." NESTA is now holding a month-long consultation during which it will aim to talk to inventors, experts and the public about how it can shape the prize so as to achieve its aim of helping inventors.

It will do that by conducting a survey which I did this morning, interviewing respondents and holding a workshop at the Museum of London between 09:00 and 12:00 on the 10 July. Regrettably, I can't attend that workshop as I have conflicting professional obligations but I will report regularly on this initiative.

In the meantime, here are three interesting inventions that NESTA has found which have been created by individual inventors:

• The Comp-A-Tent disposable tent made from non-finite, bio-based materials which are selected for their minimal environmental impact; 
• Sugru, the first new mouldable glue designed for fixing, making and improving stuff; and 
• Nimble which looks like a thimble but seems to do a great deal more.

Today I received a call from an inventor in Northampton about the advice and assistance that was available in his area. If you want to find out what services and resources are available in your part of the United Kingdom, call me on 020 7404 5252 or message me through my contact form.

"Harnessing the Potential of the UK's Home Grown Inventors" - The Government's Proposed Industrial Strategy

Jane Lambert

Yesterday the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy ("DBEIS") published its green paper Building Our Industrial Strategy which might well have led the news had it not been for the controversy over whether the Prime Minister should have disclosed news of the Trident test failure to the House of Commons before the vote on the renewal of the nuclear deterrent. Today it is likely to be overshadowed by the Supreme Court's judgment in the Art 50 Brexit appeal. It is, however, an important document upon which the public is being consulted and there is a video summarizing its proposals for those who do not wish to plough through its 132 pages.

Very briefly the green paper suggests ways in which the UK could improve productivity and spread prosperity more evenly across the country and throughout society. After stating those aims it suggests 10 policies that it calls "pillars" to achieve them. One of those pillars is "Investing in science, research and innovation" to "become a more innovative economy and do more to commercialise our world leading science base to drive growth across the UK." The document mentions some of the steps that the government is already taking and then lists some new commitments on page 34.

One of those new commitments is to:

"....... seek to harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user led innovation by launching a challenge prize programme. This prize, which will be piloted through the NESTA Challenge Prize Centre, will help inform our support to the ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ operating in companies and at home – such as through supporting enabling environments, incubators and maker spaces." 

If this commitment can be taken at face value and followed through it would be a very welcome development indeed. For far too long Britain's inventors have been ignored and in some instances disparaged but they could be an important contributor to industrial regeneration.

Other countries that have to make their way in the world outside large trading blocs such as Korea and Israel encourage their inventors. The Korea Invention Promotion Association ("KIPA"), which shares an office block in Seoul called the Korea Intellectual Property Service Centre with the Korea Intellectual Property Office, the Korea Intellectual Property Institute, The Technology Transfer Centre and related agencies has a slogan: "One Korean, one invention." If we are to emulate Korea which has a slightly smaller population in an even smaller land area than the UK we have to do the same and with all due respect to NESTA and the DBEIS it will take more than the Challenge Prize Centre.

A bit more action is promised in the next commitment though except for the proposal to station IPO representatives in the Midlands and the North it is very vague:

"We are reviewing how to maximise the incentives created by the Intellectual Property system to stimulate collaborative innovation and licensing opportunities – including considering the opening up of registries to facilitate licensing deals and business to business model agreements to support collaboration. We will place Intellectual Property Office representatives in key UK cities - starting with pilots in the Northern Powerhouse and Midlands Engine to build local capability to commercialise intellectual property."

Actual progress will probably have to come from inventors and entrepreneurs aided by their professional advisors, but it the commitments appear to signal a change of mood on the part of the government and that's a start

Should anyone wish to discuss this article with me, please call +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

I want to understand how innovation works - NESTA shows you how

Lots of people have bright ideas for new products or processes. That's called invention. Most of those bright ideas never see the light of day because they are just that. Bright ideas. They exist only in the inventor's mind without any regard to putting them into production or on retailers' shelves.

Putting a bright idea into practice to meet a genuine need is much more difficult. That's innovation. Of course innovation includes more than just inventions and it involves more than just scientists and engineers. For example, the current home page of NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) is headed "Meet the Dementia Innovators" and features what it calls "a living map of ageing innovators" (see "Dementia who's innovating" 19 Aug 2015).

NESTA provides a toolkit of videos, templates and information on the innovation process starting with the above video "An Introduction to Innovation".  It then proceeds to "Start a Project" which begins with the "Evidence Planning" template. I shall write more about this process in future articles.

Another Look at Crowd Funding

Roger Tipple at Sheffield Inventors' Group 7 Oct 2013

The speaker at Sheffield Inventors Group on 7 Oct 2013 was Roger Tipple of Tipple Associates. Roger is Sheffield Central Library's innovator in residence and the title of his talk was "Getting your Product to Market". One of the topics he discussed was funding and one of his suggestions for raising seed capital was crowd funding.

Crowd funding is appealing for funds from the public over the Internet.  As it has become harder to raise investment or borrow from conventional investors and lenders and indeed harder for investors to invest and lenders to lend a new type of financial institution has evolved that puts entrepreneurs and investors and lenders in touch with each other.  One of those institutions is Bloom VC which I discussed in "Crowd Funding: No Waffle" on 12 May 2011.  Since I wrote that article Bloom claims in its "About" page to have raised a total of £269,000 for such businesses as "Bonnie Bling" (a bespoke jewellery company) and "The Ecosse Candle Company" (which makes candles).

Nesta (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) has published "An Introduction to Crowdfunding" and "Working the Crowd, a short guide to crowdfunding and how it can work for you". It has also set up a website called CrowdingIn at http://www.crowdingin.com which has a searchable database of crowdfunding institutions or platforms in the UK.

There are a number of obvious legal difficulties with crowdfunding such as s.755 of the Companies Act 2006 which prohibits private companies offering securities to the public and s.19 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 which requires most financial services to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA"). In its note on Crowdfunding of 4 June 2013 the FCA expressed the view that:

"most crowdfunding should be targeted at sophisticated investors who know how to value a startup business, understand the risks involved and that investors could lose all of their money."

It warned that

"investors in a crowdfund have little or no protection if the business or project fails, and that they will probably lose all their investment if it does."

The FCA also expressed concern that

"some firms involved in crowdfunding may be handling client money without our permission or authorisation, and therefore may not have adequate protection in place for investors."

However, some crowdfunding platforms have sought and been granted such authorization from the FCA, The Business Secretary appears to be encouraging crowdfunding (see Michael McDowell "CBI and Vince Cable encourage businesses to look to crowdfunding" 22 May 2013 The MoneyLab Blog). Finally there is now a UK Crowd Funding Association.

As always, send me a message through my contact form or call me on 020 7404 5252 during normal office hours if you want to discuss this article. You can also tweet me, write on my wall or send me a message through G+, Linkedin or Xing.