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THINK Kit Award Ceremony

Malcolm Wicks MP,  Minister of State for Energy
DTI Conference Centre, London,  20 June 2007

Good Morning and many thanks to Paul Pankhurst; I am sure that he has provided you with a very interesting talk which has helped to illustrate how valuable innovation is to the UK economy.

May I say how pleased I am to be involved with the UK Intellectual Property THINK kit awards.

I am advised that these awards are now in their fifth year, as they started in 2003 when the subject of the competition was the highly innovative “self chilling can”, which seems interesting, and the requirement was to develop a marketing strategy for this new and innovative technology.

Since then, these awards have gone from strength to strength as indeed has the education and awareness programmes which are being run by the Intellectual Property Office, which we used to call the Patent Office, but now includes wider ideas and a wider remit.

This year’s competition was titled “Hobby To Enterprise” and offered entrants the opportunity to design a new inspirational device associated with their hobbies and to develop a marketing strategy to promote the product. Both elements of the competition actively engage with the students and encouraged them to think laterally and to realise the benefits that can be gained by making use of the intellectual property system.

I understand that the judges were faced with a really difficult task when selecting the winners. So the students who are here today should all be congratulated for emerging as overall winners from such a competitive field.

These students - students of today - will go on to become, we hope, business people and wealth creators of the future so it is essential that we take every opportunity to nurture and support this emerging talent. For the UK to compete effectively with emerging economies, it is vital that we equip our students with skill sets for life. An awareness of issues surrounding protection of intellectual assets features highly in this area. Creating a spirit of enterprise, is high on the agenda of government and I am pleased that the UK IPO is taking a proactive approach in assisting to deliver this message and to reveal how important protection of intellectual assets is in supporting sustainable enterprise which underpins the knowledge based economy.

The THINK kit awards demonstrate the wealth of ideas that are generated in our schools today and reveals the great entrepreneurial talent that exists within our student base.

The UK-IPO has developed some excellent resources for introducing Intellectual Property and revealing how IP is a vital element of any business strategy.

Two weeks ago, I launched Cracking Ideas - the biggest innovation project targeted at primary school children run by the UK-IPO in collaboration with Aardman’s Oscar ® winning inventors Wallace and Gromit. Both Cracking Ideas and THINK kit are an effective way of engaging young people in innovation. Some of the big inventions we will see later this century may be in the minds and imaginations of school children and students today.

I can announce today that the long awaited electronic version of the highly acclaimed THINK kit resource is now available on dvd and features some new and exciting features including video footage of the resource in use and includes sound files of some famous entrepreneurs telling their stories.

Over the next week or so, 11,000 copies of this resource will be sent to design and technology and business studies teachers across the country.

The Intellectual Property Office has a range of activities to promote greater awareness of intellectual property rights within education together with supporting innovation across the business sectors.

I am extremely pleased with the large numbers of you who represent stake holders and partners with whom we have worked over the past year have turned up today to take part in these awards which shows the high regard in which these awards and the work of the Intellectual Property Office is held.