U.K. invention show a display of ideas
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Bill Radke: You may come up with a brilliant invention, but you’ve still got to get it to market. The ninth annual British Invention Show is under way — the idea is to find financial backing for deserving inventions. The show’s organizer joins us now. Kane Kramer, thanks for taking the time.
Kane Kramer: It’s a pleasure.
Radke: So who comes to this show?
Kramer: Quite a broad selection. I mean, we’ve got 15 countries participating, and we’ve got 125 inventors who are here from as far as Malaysia, Taiwan. I mean really from all over. And so those are the people sort of showing their ideas. Visitors to the show are people looking for business opportunities.
Radke: Lets talk about some of the inventions on display today. I saw one is a hairbrush that dies your hair as you brush.
Kramer: Yeah.
Radke: Bad news for the beauty salon, but otherwise a fine idea.
Kramer: Yeah it’s a fine idea. I mean there’s some really sophisticated stuff. And there’s some really just nice, straightforward stuff that just makes you go, “Hey, why didn’t I think of that?” I mean one simple one that I really love at the show is basically a magnetic tea towel [dish towel]. So instead of messing around, fiddling, sticking hooks on things, it’s actually got a magnet in the tea towel.
Radke: It’s in the fibers?
Kramer: Yeah, you just throw it at the fridge. It kind of fits with human nature, and those are the ones that really get adopted. The ones that really fit and mold with our own sort of activity and the way that we actually function as human beings.
Radke: Let’s talk about one more invention at the show. An automatic pomegranate de-seeder. Kane, I just did this last night for my child. I say it cannot be done with a machine. A machine can play chess, but a pomegranate is complicated.
Kramer: It is complicated, but the man has done it!
Radke: Where will these inventions show up? TV-shopping networks? The moon? Where will we see them?
Kramer: You’ll see them everyday in daily life. I mean they really do filter through. For example, past winners and people that are actually here at the show, like Mandy Haberman, who’s the inventor of Anywayup tippy cup. You know that’s a child’s drinking cup, when you turn it upside down it doesn’t spill.
Radke: The sippy cup, we call it.
Kramer: Yeah, the tippy cup. Yeah. That was launched here at the British Invention Show. Invention, innovation is really important. All the problems that we’re facing today with climate change are a result of innovation and technology impacting the planet. The only way we’re going to get ourselves out of all these problems that we’ve got today is to innovate our way out of it. And that is what all innovators around the world and inventors around the world now are making their #1 priority.
Radke: Kane Kramer, organizer of the ninth annual British Invention Show underway in London.
Kramer: Thank you very much indeed.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
