Innovation at Work
Read about the winners and finalists of the Innovation at Work category of Enterprising Young Brits 2006.
Category joint-winner: James Baderman
James Baderman, 29, joined innovation company ?What If! in 2000 as a runner. Spotting a growing interest in businesses with a social conscience, James had the idea of a social innovation team to help social entrepreneurs increase their impact. Footprint was created, which James has now led full-time for the past three years. Recent successes include leading a volunteer team to India to inspire under-privileged kids to become social entrepreneurs and co-writing a book to help make social enterprise more appealing and accessible, which features leading social entrepreneurs like Jamie Oliver. Co-founder of the company, Matt Kingdon, says that James’ initiative has made the whole company a more appealing place to work for everyone.
Category joint-winner: Brett Clarke
Whilst working for Metronet Rail, the people responsible for maintaining much of the London Underground, Brett Clarke, 25, spotted a potential safety concern for employees moving heavy equipment. Brett devised a scissor lift trolley system, removing the need for manual labour. In use for two months at the Ruislip depot, Brett’s idea is now being put forward for use across the business.
Thirty year old Sophia Kyriacou, a project manager at Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery, came up with a groundbreaking scratch card design while at home at the weekend watching TV. Not within her daily job remit, Sophia had the idea for the ‘Go for Gold’ scratchcard to resemble a gold medal to raise funds for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games. The £1 card was on sale within two weeks of London’s success being announced and sales have peaked at over 1 million a week, helping to raise millions of pounds towards London 2012.
Loic O’Connell, 27 began his career at Tesco as a part-time driver. He soon noticed the products listed for internet home delivery were uncategorised making it hard for customers to search for alternative products if those they had requested were out of stock. Loic put forward the idea that products be arranged by categories – fridge, freezer and cupboard. Two months later the idea was implemented across the company and Loic was rewarded with a promotion to Assistant Manager.
Civil engineer Jane Campbell, aged 30, has changed the way her whole company, MWH, records and presents what it does. Jane created a template - different from the traditional engineering consultancy approach - which can be populated throughout the design and development process, replacing all text based reports. Jane’s idea has been marketed to clients in the UK, the Middle East, the US and Australia and is expected to become the tool used across MWH’s entire global operation, servicing over 6000 staff.