Member Article

Inventive Dragon winner to inspire Rochdale pioneers

Designer, inventor and businessman Mark Champkins will be bringing his ideas and inventions to Rochdale Literature and Ideas Festival this month.

The multiple award winner will be talking about sources of inspiration and how to transform product ideas into reality on Friday 25 October.

Mark, a former British Inventor of the Year runs Concentrate – a company that designs and manufactures products to help children focus better in the classroom. Mark is perhaps best known for his success in the BBC2 television programme Dragons’ Den. He pitched the company on the show and won backing from multi-millionaire Peter Jones.

Mark was the first Inventor in Residence at the Science Museum in London creating quirky products such as levitating cutlery and word count pencils.

As well as his own ground-breaking innovations, he is author of The Big Book of Celebrity Inventions published in 2011, which describes the inventions that prominent public figures such as Marlon Brando, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Jackson and Steve McQueen designed and patented.

He said: “There is little better than being inspired and energised by ideas. I think Rochdale Literature & Ideas Festival will provide a fantastic opportunity to soak up the enthusiasm associated with creating and sharing ideas.

“I’m very much looking forward to sharing my passion for ingenuity and inventiveness. I will be expanding on the ideas and inventions that have informed my designs, and demonstrating some of my own work. It’ll be like a big show and tell of the quirky, daft and clever.”

Mark Champkins – ‘What I have learnt about how to think up new product ideas and turn them into reality’ is at Number One Riverside, Rochdale on Friday 25 October at 7.15pm.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .