ABOUT THE EVENTS
BACKGROUND
Turning an idea into a scalable, commercial product is a challenge that faces many entrepreneurs, innovators and SMEs. Developing a new product, new functionality or new customer experience can be difficult, and the design to manufacture process must be given careful consideration to ensure that development costs and timelines are managed effectively.
Navigating this process can be daunting and good communication between stakeholders is vital. By understanding what designers and manufacturers care about, it will be easier to establish the good relationships and processes that will avoid costly, time consuming changes further along the development process.
Product Design Scotland in partnership with the ktn manufacturing team have curated an exciting and informative lunchtime programme – join us each week for an opportunity to hear from representatives across the design to manufacture space. Experienced innovators and specialists will give their own perspectives on the challenges and important considerations that should inform early stage product development.
We’re excited to be able to share weeks five to eight of this series – take a look below for more details on each of the events.
Don’t worry if you’ve missed any of our previous events in this series, you can now view them in our event recaps here.
Optimising Product Value: Design for the Circular Economy
13th May | 1200-1300
Sustainable design is not a trend. It has more to offer than ‘feel good’ appeal. Making solid business sense for an economic point of view and from a resilience perspective, careful consideration of how your product is made, material sources and how it’s lifetime can be extended can: enable you to offer more value to you customers; result in higher margins internally and; reduces environmental impact. Win, win, win!!
Circular Economy and sustainable design is high on the agenda of Government, Policy makers and Funders. If you want financial support for your ideas, thinking long-term and about environmental and societal impact is increasingly important.
Register for this interactive session to hear from three outstanding innovators in this space. Absorb their stories, insights and experiences as they have navigated design and manufacturing whilst championing Circular Economy and sustainable design:
- Dr Greg Lavery, Managing Director, Rype office:
“Circular Economy and sustainable design: framing your approach”
- Ian Briggs, Aspire Engineering:
“Good Engineering design for circular economy”
- Kresse Wesling MBE, Elvis and Kresse:
“Insights from developing and supporting successful CE start-ups”
Startup Mindset and Building a Team
20th May | 1200-1300
Successfully launching a start-up requires exceptional stamina and resilience. Is determination the right strategy, at any cost? When should we heed repeated knock-backs? How do we develop strong and healthily approaches to success and failure and, how do build a team and culture that’s going to enable success? This week offers advice from a range of perspective on subject that we are rarely directly asked about, but which is a) incredibly important to investors and b) absolutely essential to start-up success.
Hear about some key topics from our engaging speakers:
- Ana Avaliani, Associate Director, Enterprise, Royal Academy of Engineering:
“Top reflections from Enterprise Hub”
- Ben Hanley, Owner, Enigma people solutions
“How to build a team: what to consider and when”
- Alexandra Jugureanu, Analyst, knowledge Transfer Network:
“Learning from failure”
Intellectual Property
27th May | 1200-1300
IP can feel like a minefield! This topic has surfaced repeatedly in questions each week and is something we recognise innovators need to be better informed about if they are to make better decisions and get products to market.
We all want our ideas protected – when developing hardware products working with third parties is essential and as a start-up we only have so much clout. In this week’s instalment, we hear from three experts on how and why you might want to protect (or not protect!) you IP. This one is not to be missed!
Hear about some key topics from our engaging speakers:
- Marta Guarisco, part-qualified Patent Attorney, Scintilla
“A flythrough masterclass in IP”
- Ian Sterritt, Policy Officer UK Intellectual Property Office
“Strategy and tactics for securing IP”
- Alison Orr, IP valuator, Inngot
“How to use your IP to best advantage”.
Investment and Funding
3rd June | 1200-1300
Critical to getting any product to market, careful consideration of funding and investment is of particular important to physical product start-ups due to the scale of the costs associated with manufacture and distribution. Awareness and insights can make all the difference. This week our speakers offer invaluable perspectives on the landscape and how best to approach it.
Hear about some key topics from our engaging speakers:
- Charlotte Thomson, Access to Funding and Finance team, Knowledge Transfer Network
“The funding landscape for start-ups”
- Alexander Giles, Iceni Labs,
“The perspective of a successful innovator on funding hardware products”
- TBC
