Latest news from Loughborough University

14 Jul 2015

Graduate awarded 10K and reaches national final for innovative invention

Product Design Engineering graduate and founder of Version 22, Simon Lyons has made the final shortlist for The Inclusive Technology Prize 2015.

Nimble, the one-finger packaging opener, was shortlisted from over 200 applications to make the final 10 winning £10k in the process.

The Inclusive Technology Prize looks for innovation in products, technologies and systems that enable disabled people, their families, friends and carers equal access to life’s opportunities.

Developed with the support of the Studio, Loughborough’s graduate commercialisation hub, Nimble is a one-finger package opener that increases independence for people with disabilities. With a singular swipe of the finger, people using Nimble are able to open plastic food packaging themselves with ease rather than relying on others.

Nimble is designed with a safe blade profile with its patent pending one-finger operation making it accessible for people with limited hand mobility, joint pain, little-to-no hand strength, hand tremors, reduced hand-eye co-ordination, deformed or swollen hands and for people with only one usable hand such as stroke victims or amputees.

In a bid to win £50k, Simon intends to invest the £10k award winnings to further the business which will culminate in a final submission and business pitch in February next year.

Simon, who graduated from Loughborough with first-class honours in 2013, has received a number of national awards including the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards. This award also takes Studio’s trophy cabinet to 39.

 

Notes for editors

Article reference number: July News

Loughborough is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.

It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme, putting it among the best universities in the world, and was named University of the Year in the What Uni Student Choice Awards 2015.Loughborough is consistently ranked in the top twenty of UK universities in the Times Higher Education’s ‘table of tables’ and is in the top 10 in England for research intensity. It was 2nd in the 2015 THE Student Experience Survey and was named Sports University of the Year 2013-14 by The Times and Sunday Times. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen's Anniversary Prizes.

In 2015 the University will open an additional academic campus in London’s new innovation quarter. Loughborough University London, based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, will offer postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities.