38INNOVATION UK 1983 - BAGLESS VACUUM CLEANER James Dyson is the definitive British technical innovator. His dual- cycle bagless vacuum cleaner took over 5,000 prototypes to perfect, but became the fastest- selling vac-uum cleaner in British history and has taken his company from nowhere to a major player in the market. In the late 1970s, Dyson had the idea of using cyclonic separation to create a vacuum cleaner that wouldn't lose suction as it picked up dirt. After five years and 5,127 prototypes, Dyson launched the " G- Force" cleaner in 1983. Unfortunately, no manufacturer or distributor would launch his product in the UK as it would disturb the valuable cleaner- bag market, so Dyson launched it in Japan through catalogue sales. Initially manufactured in bright pink, the G- Force had a selling price of £ 2,000 and won the 1991 International Design Fair prize in Japan. He obtained his first US patent on the idea in 1986. After failing to sell his invention to the major manufac-turers, Dyson set up his own manufacturing company. In June 1993 he opened his research centre and factory in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. The product now outsells those of some of the companies that rejected his idea and has become one of the most popular brands in the UK. In early 2005, it was reported that Dyson cleaners had become the market leaders in the US by value, while the Dyson Dual Cyclone became the fastest- selling vacuum cleaner ever to be made in the UK. Dyson's breakthrough in the UK market, more than 10 years after the initial idea, was through a TV advertising campaign that emphasised that, unlike its rivals, it did not require the continuing purchase of replacement bags. At that time, the UK mar-ket for disposable cleaner bags was £ 100m. The slogan of " say goodbye to the bag" proved more attractive to the buying public than a previous emphasis on the suction efficiency that its technology delivers. In 1997 Dyson was awarded the Prince Phillip Designers Prize. In 2005 he was elected as a Fellow at The Royal Academy of Engineering. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the New Year's Honours, December 2006. 1989 - THE WORLD WIDE WEB The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners- Lee in 1989, with the first working system deployed in 1990, while he was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium, which seeks to standardise and improve World Wide Web- related things such as the HTML mark- up language in which web pages are written and he coined the phrase " World Wide Web". He started out on his road to success while he was at Queen's College, Oxford in 1976. While he was there, he built his first computer with a soldering iron, TTL gates, an M6800 processor and an old television. After he graduated, he spent two years with Plessey Tele­communications Ltd, a major UK telecoms equipment manufacturer, working on distributed transaction sys-tems, message relays and barcode technology. In 1978, Berners- Lee left Plessey to join D G Nash Ltd, where he wrote typesetting software for intelligent printers and a multitasking operating system. Eighteen months spent as an independent consult-ant included a six- month stint as consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle Physics Labo-ratory in Switzerland. While he was there he wrote his first programme for storing information, including using random associations. This programme formed the con-ceptual basis for the future development of the World Wide Web. In 1989, Berners- Lee proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web. It was designed to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server, " httpd" and the first client, " WorldWideWeb" a what- you- see- is- what- you- get hypertext browser/ editor. This work was started in October 1990 and the pro-gramme " WorldWideWeb" was first made available within CERN two months later, and on the Internet in the summer of 1991. Throughout 1991 and 1993, Berners- Lee continued working on the design of the Web, co-ordinating feedback from users across the Inter-net. His initial speci-fications of URSs, HTTP and HTML were refined as the web technology spread. Berners- Lee was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( KBE) for his work on the web in 2003. 2 Great British Inventions Great British Inventions Great British inventions

INNOVATION UK39 Creating success With an exciting new programme of projects, the Creative Industries KTN is making the most of future opportunities and challenges The UK's creative industries are one of the great eco-nomic success stories of recent times. They generate rev-enues of nearly £ 70bn a year and account for thousands of jobs. They are also a great powerhouse for innova-tion, with entire sectors of the global creative indus-tries market pioneered here thanks to UK- led inventions and technologies. However, the pace of technological change and the ambi-tions of global competitors means that UK organisa-tions must remain at the forefront of innovation and knowledge sharing. To accelerate this important work, the UK's Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network has launched an exciting new programme of 14 projects - Beacons for Innovation - it will tackle over the next two years. Each Beacon Project will examine the opportunities and challenges faced by the creative industries in relation to technology- focused innovation. These 14 themes have been identified through extensive consultation with leading experts from across the UK. Each project will be run to a tight timetable to ensure it delivers real business value. A community will be created around each Beacon, with live events and online activities. These will identify the priority innovation and business needs that will enable organisations to turn the visions of the future that are generated by this work into business successes for the UK. John Cass, director of the Creative Industries KTN says: " The Beacon Projects involve innovators from all sectors of the creative industries and from across the UK. This is a unique opportunity to get involved with big debates and share great ideas with people who want to make things happen." The first three Beacon Projects have been launched. The first two look at digital content, what sort of devices will we be using to access content and how will networks need to develop to enable people to move, manage, track and store data. The third Beacon examines knowledge transfer and how the UK's creative industries can better exploit KT opportunities. Jeremy Davenport, deputy director of the KTN, says: " As we spoke to people it became apparent that issues around digital content were vital to many areas of the creative industries and we are sure this Beacon will pro-voke a lot of interesting discussions. " While knowledge transfer is an area where the creative industries do not engage as much as other sectors, we need to examine what can be done to address this as KT clearly offers huge opportunities." The KTN has launched a social- networking site to sup-port the Beacon Projects and this will be at the heart of the communities and the Beacon Project activities. However, there will also be live events in various locations around the UK. John adds: " We want people from all areas of the creative industries and technology- related organisations to get involved, whether they work for multinationals or start-ups, academia or funding organisations. " This is a very exciting opportunity to help shape the landscape for the creative industries and ensure that the UK remains a world- class innovator." Membership of the Creative Industries KTN is free and people can register and read the full Beacons for Innovation report at: www. creativeindustriesktn. org. Creative Industries Creative industries ktn