Inventions to reduce water heating bills, encourage hip implants to stay in place, bring down the cost of thoroughbred horse breeding and maybe even enable more effective financial trading had their chance to shine in Dublin yesterday at Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas Showcase 2012.

The event saw 19 presenters pitch inventions arising from publicly funded research to hundreds of potential investors and business partners at the Aviva Stadium.Big ideas included the Warmer Wedge, which could halve water heating bills, OsteoAnchor, a hip implant with a surface designed to improve grip, “Equilume” light-based technology to manage reproductive timing in thorougbred horses, and a mathematically-based trading system being developed by TradersNow that focuses on risk rather than return.