The Global Grad Show is new to me, but I wish it had been around when I was at University. It is a platform where students from around the World display their inventions with the hope of them being put into full production. I have a personal interest in innovations, so I was keen to learn more about the UK entries.
The saying Necessity is the mother of invention is so true, but ideas can come at any time to people who have imagination. That Light Bulb moment inspires creations as vast as electricity or as niche as disease detection systems.
This is the sixth year of the project, which is in partnership with A.R.M Holding and Dubai Culture with a growth of 30% in entries. It attracts ideas from prestigious educational establishments, including Harvard and Imperial College. The criteria for selection was the invention must be beneficial to areas of most profound environmental, social or economic concern. The projects will be brought to life in an inaugural interactive digital exhibition on globalgradshow.com. Potential investors and the public will be able to connect to the future creators in the virtual display.
Specific trends have been detected in the applications, so these have been key to selecting the chosen inventions. In total, 100 designs have been selected from 1600 submissions to the Global Grad Show.
The Trends:
- Living with Illness & Disability
- Coping in a Complex World
- Saving and protecting vulnerable lives
- Cleaning a Waste Filled Planet
- Sustaining the Urban Experience
From twenty-four UK entrants, I have cherry-picked ones that have grabbed my interest as an Inventor myself. They are also ideas that have a personal connection to me through situations.
I used to Babysit for friends who have a daughter that has Cystic Fibrosis, so I have seen her grow into a lovely woman everyday fighting this awful illness. In the 1980s, she was not given the prospects of a long life. Fortunately, technology has developed through ideas like my first choice of invention, and longer life can be accomplished.
Peppy is a product that encourages children with Cystic Fibrosis to practise airway clearance therapy through the use of playful attachments. The product also functions as a spirometer, meaning, it records the user’s lung function levels and logs it on an app. In my view, this is superb as it makes a tedious but essential daily routine fun. A simple idea which will have so much benefit has to be pushed forward into production.
Peppy is a child-friendly Cystic Fibrosis airway clearance therapy product submitted by National College of Art & Design, Dublin.
My mother has been in hospital due to falls around the house resulting in fractures to various bones. This next invention would have helped prevent one of her injuries, I am sure.
Fallsafe is an airbag belt worn around the waist which in the event of a fall activates to cushion the wearer. I would think this would be of benefit to patients recovering in a hospital too as well as people at risk of falls. Fallsafe was submitted by the University of Limerick.
I like to think of myself as a bit of an adventurer going off hiking when I can, and occasionally my treks have taken me into some arid environments. I prepared for this so carried water and supplies, but what if you found that your bottles had leaked?
If you packed the Dew Sail, all would be ok. The product works on collecting water from the atmosphere when dew forms on surfaces during the early mornings in deserts. The water is pure and can be drunk right away without purification. Dew Sail offers hydration solutions in emergencies and was submitted by Bournemouth University.
My final choice comes as a result of my passion for cars and motorcycles and a product that can clean the air from the particles produced by tyre wear. The Tyre Collective uses electrostatics to capture harmful microplastics produced when tyres wear during use. The particles usually disperse into the air, which can affect our lungs.
More are swept into our waterways and oceans, eventually entering the food chain. The Tyre Collective mitigate emissions by capturing tyre wear at the source to ensure clean air, safeguarding the environment and peoples’ health. The Royal College of Art & Imperial College London submitted The Tyre Collective.
I could have written much more about other great ideas, but you can read about the projects on the show’s website.
The benefits of holding such events as Global Grad Show can already be seen with a project to help tackle Covid 19 already being piloted. Foresight is an AI system which processes clinical information of patients in intensive care units, predicting and alerting patient health deterioration, up to 48hrs earlier than current diagnosis alternatives—designed to be easily integrated into hospitals, using data already commonly collected by intensive care units, is capable of streamlining patient care around the World. The founder is Sam Tukra, currently undertaking a PhD at Imperial College London in AI and Advanced Machine Vision.
About the Global Grad Show 2020
A year-round activation, Global Grad Show entrepreneurship programme supports innovators to materialize their real-world impact. Through training, mentorship, connections with the industry and funding opportunities, it accelerates the process of bringing graduate projects to life. The focus is to develop business skills and offer a structured startup-building route to participants.
Last year, A.R.M. Holding pledged over £2 million (AED 10 million) for a 10-year fund to help talents from Global Grad Show entrepreneurship programme to advance towards market launch, having already supported eight projects in six years.
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