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NO MORE SMELLY BINS

19/12/2003

"NESTA was delighted to work with the BBC on Innovation Nation. The show has given the public an insight into what inventors have to go through to succeed".

The competition was run in association with NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) the organisation that champions UK creativity and innovation, which is giving Duncan and Helen a £10,000 Innovation Nation award to help with the further development of their invention.

Launched in April 2003, Innovation Nation attracted over five thousand entries, which were eventually whittled down to three finalists.

Over the past five weeks the public have been following the development of the finalists' ideas which were transformed from paper sketches into working prototypes. Viewers then had the chance to vote for their favourite invention in a live final show (transmitted on Wednesday 17 December, BBC1).

Lord Puttnam, founding Chairman of NESTA said:

"NESTA was delighted to work with the BBC on Innovation Nation. The show has given the public an insight into what inventors have to go through to succeed. It has underlined what I discovered during my five years at NESTA. Namely, how tough it is for UK innovators to turn a great idea on paper into a viable product. The three teams have been through a lot to get to this point and I wish them every success in fully realising their ideas."

The runners up were a nib-less pen invented by Rollo Metcalf and Julia Davidson from London, and mask-like swimming goggles invented by Richard Hockin and Paul McBride from Cornwall.