Author Archives: Alison Kidd
Idea Fund Award – Microplastics beach cleaning device
The last of our 2025 ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund awards goes to sea kayaker, Roy Beal, founder of Clean Jurassic Coast CIC, a not-for-profit run by volunteers who work to remove plastic and other litter from beaches. Based on … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – Plant powered sheets
Our latest award is to Natalie Smith who works in food education and sustainability in Inverness via her project Seed2Plate. While training Home Economics in schools, she noticed how many usable scraps of vegetable waste were going straight into the … Continue reading
Field regenerating…
Hay Meadow Seed Scattering 3 – September 2025 Graham, our friendly ecologist, returned today to clear another couple of patches to scatter hay seed harvested from his local wildflower meadow. From this experiment 2 years ago, the only visible result … Continue reading
Visit to an Idea Fund project
An inspiring visit yesterday to see progress on Johana Hartwig’s Idea Fund project based in Cardiff Bay. Johana is exploring how her city could find ways to feed itself utilising a kind of hydroponic system, grown on the waste discarded … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – Developing a Field Insect Microscope
Our latest ‘I’ve got an idea’ Fund award is to Freddy Sarathchandra, a mechanical engineer and public health scientist. During his PhD research and subsequent start up company Enstic’s work on acoustic ID devices for automated insect detection, Freddy has … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – Tree Hugger Robot for detecting early signs of tree disease & environmental stress
Suhandan is a 14 year old student living in Scotland who’s passionate about robotics and environmental conservation. Suhandan has built a first prototype of his Tree Hugger robot idea which will use a range of sensors: Thermal, to take readings of … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – a virtual white stick to help blind people ‘feel’ their surroundings, objects and textures.
Our latest ‘I’ve got an idea’ Fund award is to Matt Carlon, an Industrial Design Engineer with over 20 years experience in disability product development. In Matt’s words, “my idea is for a ‘virtual’ white stick that uses LIDAR technology … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – using urban river waste to create aesthetic, floating structures for growing food
Our latest ‘I’ve got an idea’ Fund award is to Johana Hartwig, a Cardiff based artist exploring creative solutions to urban environmental issues. Her work has focused on water bodies within populated spaces and public access to natural resources. Johana … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award – wearable electronic health record for resource-constrained settings
Our latest award is to Brandon Smith to help him further research, prototype and experiment with his idea of ‘Amulet’ – an ultra-low-cost wearable electronic health record (EHR) designed for rapid deployment in resource-constrained or disrupted healthcare settings, such as … Continue reading
Idea Fund Award : Detox Bio Embellishment: Non-mined gemstones
Our first ‘I’ve got an Idea’ Fund award of 2025 is to Cassie Quinn for her lab experiments into creating reflective sparkles using biopolymers. Intriguingly, the idea was born from a mistake made in an experiment of Cassie’s while producing … Continue reading
The Prospectory 