Since we began developing Heropreneurs, we have helped an increasing number of people into realising their business ideas.
Case Study 1
Annelisa spent five years in the forces (Intelligence Corps). After a spell in local government strategy she went back to university to study law. 6 years later (part time studying and 2 children) she became a barrister. This year she launched Corbett Lowe Legal, a legal services firm that offers access to high quality legal advice whilst driving costs down. Heropreneurs offered help with the business plan and strategy, pro bono legal advice, and funding. She also co-founded The Services Trust, a not for profit organisation that advises service personnel and veteran about wills and lasting powers of attorney. Heropreneurs have helped with strategy, pro bono legal advice, and lobbying parliament and the MOD for support.
Rolls Royce donation supported Annelisa.
Case Study 2
My connection with the armed forces is that I am a former Royal Marine Commando. The motivation for me to design health products was two fold. Some years ago my wife had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. She was unable to walk and I was not prepared to have her safety or dignity compromised by having to use the standard ungainly and difficult to use wheelchair that long term might have resulted in some kind of repetitive strain injury to me.
The poor posture support and discomfort would have a detrimental effect on my wife’s general health so I designed a chair with comfortable posture supportive seating on it. In order to reduce the physical strain on myself I concentrated on the balance and shape of the control arms with testing done at at the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLAN) Biomechanical Testing Facility.
The analysis of the chair showed that using my chair as opposed to a conventional chair would result in reducing the possibility of long term repetitive strain injury.
The car manufacturer Mercedes, were interested in using it to market the ”A” class saloon through “Motability” they had one of their upholsterers design and make the seating. The result was a chair so easy to use that many places that had been inaccessible to us before were now easy to access that gave us a close to normal quality of life. The important word here is ‘normal in other words not affected by a disability. The design of the chair was by me although I did make some minor modifications suggested by the Biomechanical Engineering department at UCLAN.
The pressure relief cushion I have designed and developed has been with the technical and medical expertise of Subhash Anand, Professor of technical textiles at Bolton University, together with
support and guidance from two medical journals dedicated to pressure wound prevention and management.
Rolls Royce donation supported Bryan.
