The pot of gold

DESIGN & INVENTION:It is a problem that has confounded scientists for generations. For a student with ambitions to become an inventor, it was a challenge that was to prove life-changing. In June 1998, Damini Kumar, a 22-year-old product design engineering student at the South Bank University in London, set about designing the world's first non-drip teapot. By September, she had solved the problem, designing a working prototype which she patented as the D-pot.

The solution is relatively low tech but required maths, as well as lots of pot making. A “V” shaped groove is cut at an upward slant into the underside of the spout close to the top. This creates a shelf inside the spout which acts as a dam, stopping the liquid when the pouring action ends. Another feature is that the spout is taller than usual, which stops surges of liquid when the pot is full.

“I worked with a ceramic pot maker during the day. That’s the hardest material to deal with, so I knew if I cracked that it would work with any material. “Then, I studied the maths aspect during the evening and it was the combination of the two activities that led me to the solution. That – and a little bit of luck as well,” she recalls.

Instant stardom and a slew of awards followed. These included Young British Female Inventor of the Year Award in 2001, and the BBC's Tomorrow's WorldCommended International Invention of the Year 2000. Cosmopolitanmagazine listed Kumar as one of the World's Top 100 women in 2003, and she was awarded Asian Young Achiever of the Year in the UK in 2006. She appeared on BBC News and the Richard & Judychat show.

Kumar has used the invention as a launch pad for a successful career as a product designer and latterly as an academic. She now holds the post of programme director of the product design degree course at NUI Maynooth. The teapot, however, has yet to be manufactured.

The potential of the design is well recognised. For teapot, you can read any pouring device, she notes, with massive global potential.

Some would-be suitors have, she believes, attempted to take advantage of the young designer over the years, but she has invested heavily in defending the patent, estimating that up to £50,000 (€56,000) has been spent on this alone so far.

Kumar says the lack of commercialisation of the design so far is a regret, but says she firmly believes it is only a matter of time before it comes to market. She calculates she needs an investment of around £250,000 to get the product up and running, based on an outsourced manufacturing model and producing the product in China.

If and when it happens, she wants to be at the centre of it. “As an inventor, I need to see this product realised and I believe it will come to market some day. I am not going to become obsessed with it though and let it rule my life. I am not a Dyson,” she insists.

Kumar, however, is more than happy to wear her inventor’s badge. Born in London in 1976, she grew up in a hard-working Asian family and attended the local grammar school. The penchant for inventing was obvious from around the age of six onwards, she remembers. “I started a scrapbook of inventions; some of the ideas are still valid, and some have already been applied. I used to sketch things like wallpapers with changing patterns and toothbrushes with changeable heads.”

An early aptitude for maths was encouraged by her father, who ran a successful electrical wholesale and retail business. “The journey to school was all about learning tables - no calculators allowed. It meant I could help him work out the VAT for the business in my head.”

In school Kumar was pushed two classes forward, but was forced to make choices between art and science subjects, something she passionately disagrees with. She rebelled by taking art as a subject in her spare time for her A-Levels. “In the innovation process you need to engage the whole brain, so putting barriers up between disciplines destroys creativity.”

Following her master's degree, Kumar had spells working in product design for Virgin Records and Conran and became events director for the BBC's Tomorrow's WorldRoadshow, before moving into the world of research and academia.

Headhunted to Ireland by the ill-fated Media Lab Europe, she worked within the so-called Mind Games group where research looked at possible ways of affecting the human mind through techniques such as sensory immersion and intelligent bio-feedback.

After short spells working in DIT and DCU, she was appointed programme director of the new Product Design BSc honours degree programme at NUI Maynooth in 2007. The programme is a four-year course including nine months’ work experience and Kumar says the college has high ambitions in terms of building its reputation in the innovation area.

The course has teams incorporating technology, design and marketing. Kumar says students arrive at the programme saying they cannot draw and that they have been told they are not creative by schools. This issue is at the forefront of her mind.

“By the end of the first year, apart from all the other things they learn, they can draw and they realise once more that they are creative and that they have the tools for innovation,” she says. Contrary to popular perception, creativity is something that can be taught, not just something we are born with, she adds.

Kumar’s passion for encouraging Ireland’s young innovators drove her to develop a programme launched last year called Imaginate. Students at second level schools were encouraged to design objects that would feature in classrooms of the future in a programme that was sponsored by NUI Maynooth, Enterprise Ireland, Intel and RTÉ. The response was enormous - over 1,600 entries. “Irish kids have huge imaginative skills. Picking winners for this competition was not easy.”

She is encouraged that recent developments in the second-level curriculum are encouraging greater interest in science and innovation, but worries that this does not translate into practice in Irish industry.

“There’s plenty of talk around design and innovation, but I don’t see too much evidence of it on the ground I’m afraid. There seems to be a lack of confidence and an inability to take risks. On the positive side that means there’s a blank canvas, and I see Ireland as a place where I can do a lot of work.”

For Ireland’s economy to recover, investment must be made in the country’s educational infrastructure and in training and reskilling. “Innovation is going to be the key part of our economic growth when we come out of recession, and we need to work on it now. We’ve been hit hard because we are an open economy, but scale will really play to our advantage if we get the policies right. Finland provides a good example of the upside potential.”

Kumar says she will stay around to help in any case, regardless of any plots involving teapots.

Public Ambassador: Raising Awareness

AS PART of the EU’s European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009, Damini Kumar was chosen to be a European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation, one of 29 ambass- adors throughout Europe.

These leading thinkers have been chosen from the worlds of science, education, arts, culture and social life to act as role models, showcasing their achievements and using the platform gained to promote creativity and innovation.

Among the other ambassadors are Dr Edward de Bono and designer Philippe Starck, along with a range of other distinguished scientists, business leaders, architects and artists.

The objective of the year is to raise public awareness of these issues and to highlight the role of innovation and creativity in solving complex challenges facing society.

The year is being spearheaded by EU Commissioner Jan Figel, who has spoken about the need to rekindle a new sense of innovation and creativity in Europe across a spectrum embracing science, business, arts, cultural and social forms, to help address current issues.

Last month, Kumar addressed a conference of the EU Committee of the Regions and the European Parliament in Brussels.

She spoke of the need to encourage risk-taking and to remove the various barriers to creativity including cultural, intellectual and emotional barriers.

She highlighted the success of the Imaginate programme in Irish schools, and suggested that the concept be rolled out, Europe-wide.