Trevor Bayliss: Let teachers be mothers of invention

From a speech by the creator of the clockwork radio to launch the East London Inventors Club, at East London University

The lone inventor is usually plagued by the headache of what to do next. Who does he or she turn to? Who do you trust? Will they laugh at me? And so on. There is an invention in all of us. If you can solve a problem, you are on your way to becoming an inventor, for who knows, your solution to the problem might be unique, and therefore of value to others.

I have looked back through history to find out how fellow inventors have been treated and was horrified to see how much talent, research and resource had been wasted. Over and over again their astounding work had changed all our lives, and yet they had ruined themselves in the process.

There is an extraordinary camaraderie that exists between inventors. This inventors club will be a safe haven for them while simultaneously providing a source of employment for those who choose to take up their ideas and commercialise them.

I hope that East London University will teach "invention" as part of its curriculum. There are those who say you cannot teach invention, but to them I say, but then surely you cannot teach art! You can teach: history of invention; inventors and what happened to them; intellectual property; the importance of patents; and business plans and prototypes.

Why don't we have bachelors of invention as well as bachelors of art? Surely achievement is sometimes more important that qualifications. It's not what you say, it's what you do! Providing the university is aware of the lone inventor's paranoia that someone might steal his or her idea and can positively protect them, this establishment will become one of the first of its kind to bring the inventor's idea to its rightful destiny.