It takes a lot to extract the world’s top innovators from their laboratories and sheds.
But the European Inventor Award manages each year to lure them reluctantly into the limelight. Described as the ‘technology Oscars’ and the ‘Eurovision of inventors’, the ceremony honours the best breakthroughs from Europe and beyond.
Six men (yes, sadly the only women who got anywhere near the trophies were the two models carrying them on to the stage) were honoured in Berlin last week after being chosen from a shortlist that also included the Swedish designers behind the inflatable bike helmet, the Austrian husband and wife behind the cochlear implant and the Italian chemist behind self-cleaning concrete.
MASAHIRO HARA – inventor of the Quick Response (QR) code
Our interview begins with the exchange of business cards. QR code business cards, of course.
The little square made up of a profusion of black and white dots has been printed on everything from posters to gravestones since it was released back in 1994.
Its popularity has certainly surprised the code’s Japanese inventor, Masahiro Hara, who came up with the concept before camera phones even existed.
‘QR codes are considered to be such a fashionable thing that people are now getting tattoos of them,’ he says, laughing.
‘Well, it’s convenient, right? It’s not just an image – it has real data. So you just show your wrist and you get a discount at the cashier’s desk.’
There is speculation that the QR’s days are numbered. But Hara, 56, begs to differ.
‘We’re still getting requests to increase the amount of information the codes can hold,’ he says. ‘The technology will survive until the day people decide to give up their paper culture.’
ARTUR FISCHER – inventor of the synchronised camera flash, the Fischer wall plug and many more
‘It’s very simple – it’s a basic question of character,’ says Artur Fischer, explaining why he can still be found at his workbench aged 94.
With more than 1,000 registered patents to his name, Fischer is one of the world’s most prolific inventors and has been described as the Edison of our time.
In 1949, the German entrepreneur received his first patent for the synchronised photo flash – inspired by a snapper’s refusal to take his daughter’s picture due to bad lighting.
Then came his 1958 wall plug, now one of the most frequently used building supplies in the world, with 14m produced every day.
And he isn’t done yet. Before picking up the lifetime achievement award in Berlin, he tells me: ‘In my attitude, nothing much has changed’. He reveals that he is currently working on a size-adjustable egg cup.
The ‘king of the wall plug’ has a few tips for budding innovators. ‘Take the best possible materials to produce the best possible product,’ he says. ‘You have to never copy. And you have to be honest.’
CHUCK HULL – inventor of 3D printing
Chuck Hull is humility personified.
Softly-spoken and understated, the ‘father’ of 3D printing insists several times that he is ‘not a futurist’. He could have fooled me.
Hull, 75, is surely the only person on the planet who can claim that his 1983 invention can be used to not only create a whole new load of gadgets – but also to replicate itself.
The American’s modesty is punctured when wife Anntionette pipes up.
‘It was Wednesday, March 9, 1983, at 8.39pm,’ she declares. ‘The phone rang, and he said: “What are you doing?”
‘I said, “Well, I have my PJs on and I’m ready for bed.” He said: “Get dressed, get down to the lab. Right. Now.”
When she arrived, ‘he held this part in his hand and said: “I did it! The world as we know will never be the same.”
‘We laughed and we cried and we stayed up all night just imagining. He told me it was going to take 25 years of hard work, but people were going to think three-dimensionally. He was off by five years!’
Then Mrs Hull pulls out a pedestrian piece of black plastic from her clutch bag: an eye-wash cup. It was the first ever 3D-printed product; the first that didn’t ‘look like spaghetti’.
CHRISTOFER TOUMAZOU – inventor of the DNA microchip
Professor Toumazou is a man on a mission – to apply the advances seen in consumer electronics to ‘primitive hospital-based technology’.
It has led to the creation of his groundbreaking DNA microchip that can be plugged into a GP’s laptop via a USB stick to reveal genetic disorders within 20 minutes.
Now being used in hospitals worldwide, the innovation paves the way for personalised, preventive medical diagnostics without the need for time-consuming lab analysis.
The 52-year-old from west London – who is the first British winner of a European Inventor Award in six years – was inspired by his son Marcus, now 23, after he suffered kidney failure as a child.
‘The future doctor will be looking at your medical future and not your medical history,’ he says.
‘And if I had technology like this when my son lost his kidneys, which was caused by a genetic mutation, maybe we wouldn’t have solved the problem of him losing them, but we could have managed his lifestyle so that he lost them in comfort.’
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