Feature
Enterprise & Innovation
Leading light: Birmingham innovators have led the way in dark times
‘There’s a strong link between automotive technologies and Medtech, especially after their recent collaborative work creating ventilators’
principal on which the machine is based was used until the arrival of modern photocopiers.
• Bicycle bells: The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered two decades of stagnation known as ‘The Long Depression’. It was also around this time that John Richard Dedicoat invented the bicycle bell, with patents appearing as early as 1877.
• Whistles: At around the same time, in 1875, toolmaker Joseph Hudson made the first whistle from brass. It was used for the first time three years later at a football match and then in 1883, Hudson created the first police whistle for the Metropolitan force.
• Microwaves: In 1940 John Turton Randall and Harry Boot invented something that changed the course of World War II and led to the creation of microwave ovens. They created a prototype cavity magnetron at the University of Birmingham, which produced ultra-short radio waves for use in radar, giving the Allies a considerable advantage.
• Gymshark: The effects of the 2008 economic crash were still being felt in 2012 when unemployment reached a 17-year high of nearly 2,700,000 and figures indicated the UK economy had entered a double-dip recession. However, this was the year that Ben Francis set up the online gym clothing firm Gymshark from his parents’ garage, aged just 19. The company, which started in Solihull, is now a multi-national business valued at £1bn.
46 CHAMBERLINK October 2020
One reason why innovation is still strong across Birmingham and beyond is that the Government is keen to invest in entrepreneurs. Intellectual Property (IP) goes hand-in-hand with innovation, and the government has subsidised the IP Audit Scheme, reducing the cost to encourage people to file patents. Also, the Government has worked with local teams to develop the West Midlands Local Industrial Strategy, which aims to increase innovation in the region. Its plans include supporting the West Midlands to become the centre of transport innovation in the UK, and to commercialise research and development. One area I’m interested in is medical technology (Medtech), which is
another big area of growth for the region. There’s a strong link between automotive technologies and Medtech, especially after their recent collaborative work creating ventilators. We expect to see this partnership carry on beyond the Covid-19 outbreak for automotive and Medtech businesses in the West Midlands. We have seen how, even when times are tough, businesses in Birmingham and the Midlands are quick to take up the challenge of innovating, creating and diversifying. It is wonderful to see that even during some of our darkest times, there are innovative people working hard to bring back stability, and improve the world around us.
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