THE SEARCH BEGINS FOR BRITAIN’S BEST YOUNG FEMALE INVENTORS

Added: (Thu Aug 23 2001)

Pressbox (Press Release) - The search is now on in schools and colleges across the country for the Young Female Inventor of the Year 2002.

The award, part of the British Female Inventor of the Year event sponsored by The Patent Office, invites five- to eighteen-year-old girls to submit their original ideas for new inventions that would improve the world. The founder of the event, Bola Olabisi of the Professional Family Woman’s Network, started the awards to encourage more young women to consider careers in science, engineering and technology.

Ms Olabisi says: “We want to provide young women with the opportunity to demonstrate the innovative ideas that they can come up with and celebrate their creativity. With the awards we hope to be able to also show them how exciting careers in engineering and science can be.”

Melvyn Rees of The Patent Office says: “It is important that we provide a steady flow of young creative people to increase competitive ideas for the economy. By giving young women a taste of innovation success while they are studying, we hope to increase the numbers of females entering research positions in industry and in University laboratories. It is important to the country that we have ideas from a diverse cross-section of the community.”

Successful young inventors in the awards will be competing for a share of £20,000 worth of prizes. The closing date is 9 November 2001. The winners will be announced on 7 February at the British Female Inventor of the Year (BFIY) Award 2002 event at Café Royal. For details of how to enter, please see the British Female Inventor of the Year website www.bfiy.com or write to British Female Inventor of the Year, PFWN, 4 Waverley Gardens, Barking, Essex IG11 0BG.

For more information about The Patent Office, please see www.patent.gov.uk.

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Issued by Prowse & Co on behalf of The Patent Office.

For more press information, please contact:
Deborah Fields at Prowse & Company on 01372 363 386.

News release is available online at http://www.prowse.co.uk/newsf.html

22 August 2001