A digital design for life

Nov 3 2009 by Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette

Teesside’s creative and digital designers are adding colour to a host of sectors from agriculture to construction. JEZ DAVISON reports.

ONE day last year, Andrew and Sylvia Dean brought a dirty old shirt before Teesside University’s £12m Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI), claiming they had hit on the next business idea.

The chief science officer and chief executive of Nano Agrochemicals realised they could use nanoparticles on the shirt surface to develop a solution that would help protect crops.

Working with the IDI they used computerised design packages to develop a new product range of nanoparticle agrochemicals which, Andrew claims, could provide an alternative to pesticides.

The biotechnology graduate says the solution can protect crops from pathogens and soil contaminants and improve their health by allowing them access to vital nutrients and minerals.

It could also be developed to create a magnetic substance that could be used in the extraction of metals such as iron, copper and aluminium.

If either of these ideas take off, they could be worth millions of pounds and make both Andrew and his mum Sylvia rich.

And nobody would be happier than IDI director Jim TerKeurst, who helps fledgling entrepreneurs work out how to catapult their bright ideas into the money-spinning arena of commerce.

Digital design, he reckons, is at the heart of the best innovations: “Design is an approach to finding a solution. It’s a philosophy, not an aesthetic outcome, and can be put to good use in all sorts of businesses.”

The IDI creates around one company a week and this year has supported more than 20 new start-ups through its Digital Fellowship scheme, which helps digital media or technology specialists to make their ideas a commercial reality through the use of cutting-edge facilities, mentoring support and funding.