Dyson Begins Annual Search For Top Kiwi Inventor

For immediate release
April 21, 2008

Dyson Begins Annual Search For Top Kiwi Inventor

Emerging inventors, engineers and product designers with inspiring new design ideas, are being called to enter the annual Dyson Product Design Award.

Judges are seeking innovative design concepts which provide solutions for everyday problems. Previous award submissions include a bamboo crutch for amputees in third world countries, a digital talking book for the blind, a practical yet stylish skateboarding shoe with a replaceable outer shell and washable inner, and a man overboard life saving device.

Last year’s winning product, Arctic Skin, designed by Massey University graduate Stephen Smith, is a cooling vest worn by endurance athletes to keep hydrated. The vest is designed to allow sportspeople to maintain constant temperature for up to six hours, enabling them to maintain an optimal physical performance for longer periods while competing. It contains an insulated water bladder that, like the Camelpak before it, supplies drinking water on the run.

With a squeeze of a rubber pump near the shoulder, the athlete can redirect controlled amounts of the water into a radiator-like rubber vein system within the vest, laid across the athlete’s back.

Stephen was the first winner in the event’s eight year history to secure a job at Dyson’s world class design facility in Malmesbury, in England. He commenced a five year design contract last month.

The 2008 Dyson Product Design Award recipient will travel to the UK with $3,000 prize money and accommodation in London, and have the opportunity to meet key members of the UK design community, including a tour of Dyson’s world class design facility. Plus, they can select an official fee prize package from IPONZ tailored to their design’s intellectual property needs, a year’s membership to DINZ, a Dyson machine, and an invitation to join the D&AD Talentpool, an online database of international design talent.

The Award is open to final year tertiary students studying in the areas of design, technology or engineering, and to graduates in these areas who are in their first five years of work force.

Launched in 2001, the Dyson Award is held in association with the British CouncilNew Zealand, the Intellectual Property Office (IPONZ), and the Designers Institute of New Zealand to recognise and reward up and coming Kiwi designers with product design ideas that best demonstrate innovative and inspiring solutions to everyday problems.

Interested applicants can visit www.dyson.co.nz for entry information or email entries@dysonawards.co.nz to request an entry pack.

Entries close on Friday 30 May, and the winner will be announced at an award ceremony in Auckland in June.

ENDS

Notes to editor:
* Dyson was founded by James Dyson who made over 5000 prototypes and dedicated 15 years to revolutionise the vacuum cleaner.
* Dyson invests heavily into R&D, a third of Dyson’s employees are design engineers developing new technologies to make everyday products work better. Dyson has 577 patents and patents pending in respect of over 438 different inventions, which protect Dyson technology from being copied by imitators.
* Dyson is New Zealand’s leading vacuum cleaner brand.
* Dyson is the only floorcare company to partner the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand. The main objective of this alliance is to accomplish deep reaching, long term and better solutions for people with asthma.

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