Jenni Campbell on winning the innov_ex 2012 prize
This annual prize was introduced in 2007 by the organisers of the Innovation for Extremes conference, Mike Parsons and Mary Rose and was originally sponsored by NWTexnet.It is to encourage future innovators in the outdoor trade. The 2012 prize was sponsored by Pertex : it consists of a cash prize of £500 + the option of a year’s business mentoring.
As Outdoori observed in April 2012 ‘The prize has steadily gained prestige over the years with finalists and winners going on to develop products and careers in the outdoor industries’.
Click here to find out how to enter
About Jenni Campbell, the 2012 winner with Cleat Feat.
Jenni Campbell, 2012 innov_ex winner explains Cleat Feet
The winner of the 2012 innov_ex Innovation Design prize was Jenni Campbell with Cleat Feat an adventure-racing cycling shoe system. Her innovation especially impressed the judges ’by the practicality of the product and the fact that it was a finished item and not just a prototype or an idea’.(Chris Townsend, TGO Gear reviewer and a 2012 innov_ex judge)
Jenni Campbell completed a B.Eng on Sports Engineering at the University of Strathclyde in DMEM (Design Manufacture and Engineering Management) graduating with in July 2011 with a First Class Honours and a departmental project award for best commercial awareness. She now works at Berghaus as a footwear developer.
Jenni tells the story of Cleat Feat after receiving her award from mountaineer Al Hinks in the video clip below
What inspired Jenni ?
‘This project started off as my final year project towards my degree. Being keen on the outdoors, leading an active life and competing in multi activity adventure races led me to a realising a problem which I felt needed a solution…therfore I developed the brief myself from personal experiance. I spent a good few months carrying out research in the related user, market and competitor areas. I carried out the majority of my user research on adventure racing blogs along with some face to face interveiws, role play and ethnography. Marketing research covered mainly the sport of adventure racing and the sports equiptment and outdoor industry and I touched on commuting and leisure cycling; this is an area I am currently looking into further. I took the brief to a conceptual stage and developed this into a range of prototypes until I reached a working prototype.I applied and was accepted for funding from the SIE (Scottish Institute for Enterprise, http://www.sie.ac.uk/) which allowed me to apply for my patent which is currently pending.
Jenni’s design has already been highly praised on Outdoorsmagic and Outdoori described the design as ‘ ingenious, superbly researched and very well presented’
Click here to find out about the 2011 Prize winner
Click here to find out more about the 2010 Prize winner and other past winners.
Click here to review The Outdoor Innovators of the Future
Click here for video of the 2010 Innov_ex Design Prize Click here to find out how to enter
