By Jessica Salter
Amanda Jones, 27, set up her company, Red Button Design, with her schoolfriend James Brown, a design engineer. The pair appeared on BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den in 2007 to pitch their innovation – a mobile water filter device called Midomo, that can filter 50 litres of dirty water using the power of its wheels, intended for use in Africa – they were offered £50,000 by the dragons. (Following the programme they were offered a £45,000 grant by Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, meaning they could turn down the television investors and keep all their business for themselves.) The pair have now spent £300,000 developing the product and the sixth version is in use in communities all over sub-Saharan Africa (midomo.co.uk).
'When I left Glasgow University where I studied psychology and philosophy, I decided that I wanted to work for the UN and I started researching. I came across the Millennium Development Goals [eight international targets agreed by all UN member states, which include eradicating extreme poverty and fighting disease epidemics] and I thought that the thing that affected all of them, from child health and education to combating HIV, was water. Clinics in Africa are clogged full of people suffering from dysentery so doctors can’t treat patients with HIV; girls can’t go to school because they have to spend all day making lots of trips to collect water.
'Everyone knows water is essential to life, but the facts are astounding: 10,000 people die each day because they can’t get to clean water. Every 20 seconds a child dies from a water-related disease; 443 million school days and more than 40 billion working hours are lost to water collection annually.
'James wanted to design a product that would really stand out for his degree show, so I shared my research and he came up with the Midomo. We were clueless about business at the start – we were only 23 – and had a beautiful naivety that you never get back.
'I applied for Dragons’ Den at three one morning and then forgot about it – like when you do late-night eBay shopping. Then the researchers rang me and invited me for a screen test. I hadn’t even told James. On the way home, when they’d given us the money, I realised we were just two kids in borrowed suits.
www.telegraph.co.uk
