Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh is an Irish artist and inventor. She won the 2018 European Inventor Award for Small and Medium Enterprises for Sugru, a mouldable glue that was described by Time magazine as one of the world's best inventions.

Jane ní Dhulchaointigh
Born
Kilkenny
Alma materRoyal College of Art 2004
Known forSugru
Websitehttps://sugru.com/

Early life and education

Ní Dhulchaointigh was born in Kilkenny. She grew up on a farm and was constantly repairing broken items. She studied sculpture. At the age of 23 she moved to London to study product design at the Royal College of Art.[1] Here she came up with the idea of Sugru, a mouldable elastomer that can be used to repair broken items.[1] She combined bathroom sealant with wood-dust powder, which resulted in bouncy ball that looked like wood.[2] She graduated in 2004.[3] She partnered with James Carrigan and Roger Ashby to found the company FormFormForm in 2005.[1] She spent 8,000 hours in the lab developing the product, working with silicone scientists.[1] She demonstrated an early product at Electric Picnic.[4] She won a £35,000 grant from Nesta.[5] They ran out of funding in 2008, and used social media and crowdfunding to raise enough money to buy machinery, develop packaging and design a website.[3] They went on to secure £250,000 from Lacomp PLC in 2006.[6] The product eventually launched in December 2009 and sold out within 6 hours.[7] They were featured in Boing Boing and Wired.[3] She named Sugru after the Irish word súgradh, which means play.[7]

Career
The joystick of an Xbox controller that has been fixed with Sugru

Sugru is sold in over 6,000 shops worldwide.[1] In 2010 Time magazine as one of the world's best inventions.[8] She delivered a Ted Talk at TEDxDublin in 2012.[9] Ní Dhulchaointigh was named as the Design Entrepreneur of the year by the London Design Festival in 2013.[10] She launched Sugru in B&Q shops across the UK and Ireland using a YouTube video to tell their customers about their product.[10][11]

By 2013, Sugru had been used on all seven continents.[5] They collaborated with Sugru user Joanne, who had no fingers on her left hand but wanted to take part in an ultra-marathon.[12][13] Ní Dhulchaointigh was selected by EY as one of their top entrepreneurs of the year.[14] She was invited to give a keynote at 99U at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Her keynote, The Magic Is in The Process, discussed the six-year process from hmmm to eureka and wow!.[15] They developed a foil handle for fencers with fencing equipment manufacturer Leon Paul. In 2014 Sugru was described by The Guardian as a wonder material.[2] FormFormForm were estimated to turn over £3.6 million a year in 2016.[16]

Ní Dhulchaointigh spoke at InspireFest in 2017, where she estimated that Sugru had been used to fix more than ten million items.[17][18] They launched a Family-Safe formula that allows children to get involved with making.[19] She won the 2018 European Inventor Award for Small and Medium Enterprises.[20][21] She is the first Irish person to win a European Inventor Award in the history of the prize.[4] The company sold to Tesa in 2018 for £7.6 million.[22] She is part of the Awesome Foundation, who donate £100 into a different idea every month.[3]

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gollark: GTech™ personality test.
gollark: Oh, I should ask about favourite fundamental particles too.

References
  1. Office, European Patent. "Jane ní Dhulchaointigh and team (Ireland)". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  2. Hickey, Shane (2014-03-16). "Sugru, the new wonder material: 'I made a thing like wood, but it bounced'". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  3. Discontent, The Great. "Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh on The Great Discontent (TGD)". The Great Discontent. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  4. "Sugru inventor Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh wins European Inventor Award". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  5. Sinclair, Emma (2013-06-24). "How 'best invention' Sugru went from B&Q to the North Pole". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  6. "Jane ní Dhulchaointigh - Entrepreneur of the Year". Entrepreneur of the Year. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  7. McCue, TJ. "21st Century Duct Tape - Sugru". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  8. Dyk, Deirdre Van (2010-11-11). "The 50 Best Inventions of 2010 - TIME". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  9. TEDx Talks (2012-10-02), Can We All Be Fixers?: Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh at TEDxDUBLIN, retrieved 2018-11-21
  10. "Story". sugru.com. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  11. Sugru (2011-11-11), meet Sugru, retrieved 2018-11-21
  12. "Jane ni Dhulchaointigh: Where Sugru Comes From | Make". Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers. 2013-07-26. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  13. "Joanne and her Yukon River Race adventure". sugru.com. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  14. "Entrepreneurs Archive - Entrepreneur of the Year". Entrepreneur of the Year. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  15. Inc., Behance (2013-08-09). "Jane ni Dhulchaointigh: The Magic Is in The Process". 99U by Behance. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  16. "Meet the woman behind Sugru, the world's first mouldable glue". Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  17. Inspirefest HQ (2017-07-14), Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, Sugru | Inspirefest 2017, retrieved 2018-11-21
  18. Kennedy, John (2017-07-13). "Sugru's Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh on making a good idea stick". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  19. "Family Safe Formula". sugru.com. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  20. Office, European Patent. "Outstanding inventors from France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and the US honoured with European Inventor Award 2018". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  21. Office, European Patent. "Mouldable glue gives new life to broken possessions: Jane ní Dhulchaointigh named European Inventor Award 2018 finalist". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
  22. "Sugru: how a brilliant invention became a financial disaster". inews.co.uk. 2018-06-05. Retrieved 2018-11-21.
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