INNOVATIVE CONSULTANCY UP FOR NATIONAL AWARD

A Derbyshire man on a mission to make consumer products designed more accessibly has been shortlisted for a prestigious national award.

Inclus, Robert McKinna’s inclusive design consultancy, will be one of the ten finalists in this year’s Champion of Champions Competition, organised by charity EIBF.

Robert, 23, of Youlgrave, created Inclus during his Industrial Design and Technology studies at Loughborough University, inspired by his own experiences of having two non-visible disabilities of Dyspraxia and being a cancer survivor.

He says making products more accessible will have a positive impact on the 16 million people from social minority groups living in the UK.

Robert said: “Inclus in particular aims to empower those often overlooked, such as the elderly, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities. By using our in-house inclusive design tools, our co-design process involving feedback from social minority communities, and inclusive design expertise, we help consumer product organisations create inclusively designed solutions.

“The benefits to our clients include accessing new consumer markets, boosting brand value, and leading the way in inclusivity in their own sectors. Our aim is to make inclusive design prioritised as highly as sustainability is within product development.

“My own experiences have meant that I have experienced inaccessibility throughout my life and in particular when it comes to using everyday products. I found over the years from doing various design projects that others had similar experiences of inaccessibility and that currently nearly every single product we use in our day to day lives is in fact inaccessible and unable to be used by somebody from a social minority.”

After initially founding Inclus during his time at Loughborough University, Robert then went on to participate in the University of Nottingham’s Ingenuity Impact programme, winning a prize in their enterprise competition, with prizes provided by EIBF. And now, as one of the finalists in EIBF’s Champion of Champions Competition, he will compete against nine other finalists from across the UK.

The competition’s grand final will take place at the Royal Academy of Engineering on Friday 8 November, where Robert will compete for a share of the £16,500 prize pot, providing vital seed money to help winners develop their innovation.

Winners will also receive mentoring from business leaders who are members of the Sainsbury Management Fellows network, plus CV packages from PurpleCV and entrepreneurial books from Cambridge University Press and Double your Price, an award-winning book by David Falzani MBE, which covers how pricing works with practical insights, tools and actionable guidance.

The event, hosted by TV presenter and engineer Rob Bell, is the culmination of a year of EIBF-sponsored enterprise competitions held across UK universities, with thousands of undergraduate and graduates taking part.

Each year, EIBF champions business education for engineers and supports universities by giving them grants to award prizes to engineering students who develop ideas that can make a positive impact on society.

On being shortlisted for the grand final, Robert said: “Its great opportunity for me to increase the education and awareness around inclusive design and the need for greater accessibility within our world as well as an opportunity for me to meet other brilliant like-minded individuals.

“Business skills help to give you an edge and a contextual understanding that others don’t have and it helps to take the practical skills that you have learnt at university and apply them in a manner that helps you to build and scale solutions rather than having to be controlled by another companies agenda or vision.”

Claire Mulholland, Director of Ingenuity Impact, said: “We are delighted to hear the news of Robert’s success progressing onto the Champion of Champions Competition – such an inspiring entrepreneur with impact at the heart of his idea. We wish him every success with this next pitch and I am pleased Ingenuity Impact could help kickstart this exciting journey for Inclus.”