Inventor short listed for top award
27th July 2009
Cathy Topping, a former midwife turned inventor has been short listed for an Innovation in Development award by the Lord Stafford Awards.
Cathy’s invention the ‘Topping Chair’ aims to reduce and prevent knee injuries sustained by midwives due to continued kneeling in maternity units, which in turn should improve performance and save the NHS money due to reduced sickness and health and safety claims.
Cathy Topping first had the idea for the ‘Topping Chair’ after sustaining a knee injury from many years as a midwife; she received funding from TTF at Birmingham University as well as investing more than £25’000 of her own money and sought assistance, firstly from Nottingham University and later with De Montfort University.
Recently, Cathy received support with the commercialisation of the ‘Topping Chair’ from ProspectIP, an innovation initiative at De Montfort University supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The Lord Stafford Awards celebrates innovation collaboration between businesses and universities. and are being held at the Lincolnshire Showground on September 10th 2009.
(A further news story can be found on thisisbusiness-eastmidlands)