Event details
Ideas that translate into commercial success
| Time: | 5.30pm for a 6.00pm start |
| Date: | Thursday 26 March 2009 |
| Venue: | Lakeside, Mansfield Road, Arnold, Nottingham |
Two leading innovators whose ideas have translated into thriving businesses shared their challenges and successes with us.
Peter Robertson, Founder, OneClick Technologies
For one of his MBA modules Peter put forward a business plan for an innovative energy saving device. He discovered that electrical equipment such as computers and televisions are often left on standby, wasting electricity and contributing to global warming. He founded OneClick Technologies in 2001 and launched the IntelliPlug and the IntelliPanel commercially. Based in Annesley, OneClick has sold nearly one million products and saved almost 50 million kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions.
This year OneClick Technologies won one of the UK’s most prestigious awards for business performance, the 2008 Queen’s Award for Enterprise: innovation.
Andy Davies, Business Development Director, Gripple Limited
Andy has been with Gripple almost from the start 20 years ago. With a degree in Management Sciences, he is instrumental in identifying the virtually endless applications of the unique, patented, Gripple wire joiner, invented by company founder and chairman Hugh Facey. Used in the construction, viticulture and fencing markets, 300 million have been sold in 85 countries worldwide with overseas sales representing 80% of turnover. Its many awards include two Queens Awards for Innovation and International Trade.
In common with every Gripple trainee Andy is driven by an innovational spirit and the development of new product applications on which is spent more than 4% of annual turnover. As he says: "Think the unthinkable, do the impossible and you will succeed."