A wheelchair that can climb up and down stairs firmly.
By Anne-Sophie Galli/Geneva/DPA
Life poses many challenges, from high electricity bills to lost teddy bears. Like every year, innovators from around the world have gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, to offer solutions. They range from the useful to the quirky.
Many of the 1,000 useful and curious products presented at this year’s International Exhibition of Inventions, which opened this week in western Switzerland, have been triggered by the frustrations of daily life.
One of the 750 exhibitors, who hail from 48 countries, is Alan Lee from Hong Kong. He says he has been inspired by a TV report about people in wheelchairs who struggle with buildings that do not have a lift.
“People feel excluded because they always have to ask for help,” he said.
He came up with a powered chair that has several flexible caterpillar tracks instead of wheels. At the Geneva fair, he demonstrated how his chair can climb and descend stairs.
French inventor Vincent Tempelaene also had the chronically ill in mind when he developed his high-tech injection device. The syringe automatically mixes the required medication, adapts the dose to the patient’s needs, stores medical data and sends an alarm when the next injection is due.
“You will no longer forget to take your injection,” said Valerie Raux, who presented the product at the fair.
Power saving and sustainable energy are major themes at the 43rd edition of the Geneva fair.
A new type of small wind turbine could help farms or small craft businesses save money in their own backyards.
Even though the wind generators are more than 20m high, “they are more silent than wind blowing through trees”, said Helmut Richter, the German mechanical engineer who developed the product with two scientists.
A business with four employees could lower its energy costs by some 30%, its inventor claimed.
Like most of the other innovators, Richter has come to Geneva to find investors.
Each year, nearly half of the exhibited inventions end up winning licence contracts worth a total of 50mn euros ($52mn), according to organisers. The event is held under the patronage of the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation.
About 60,000 people visit the fair each year. Some 40% of them are investors who prefer to spend money on new, creative products than invest in the stock market.
While money is a powerful motivator, some of the ideas presented in Geneva seem to spring from very personal motives and experiences.
Swiss adventurer Xavier Rosset, for instance, drew a lot of attention with his ultralight airplane, with which he plans to circumnavigate the earth on a 80,000-kilometre trip.
“No one has done that with an aircraft as light as mine,” said Rosset, who previously survived for 300 days on an uninhabited island in the Pacific.
For those more interested in handling the daily adventures of family life, Veronique Vannuvel from Belgium has found a low-tech solution.
Her two daughters often misplaced their cuddly toys, resulting in tearful breakdowns.
Vannuvel simply created a soft elastic strap that goes around a toddler’s wrist and makes sure that beloved teddy bears do not go astray.
