Victoria Hamilton is a graduate from the University of Strathclyde in Product Design Engineering. Victoria is the founder of VH Innovation and the Recoil Kneepad which is a new generation of kneepads for manual trade workers.
How VH Innovation got started
The idea to develop the Recoil Kneepad was encouraged by Victoria’s father who suffered from painful knees from the ineffective kneepads that he wore for his job as a joiner.
What happened next
Victoria reached out to support agencies including SIE, Princes Trust and the Strathclyde Entrepreneurial Network to help secure funding to work with an experienced design agency.
The next step was to prove the concept through stringent testing at the bioengineering lab at Strathclyde University which was funded by Scottish Enterprise. Once the concept had been proven, the aesthetics were developed further and a manufacture-ready prototype was created.
Once the prototype was ready, Victoria was able to use her contacts to arrange meetings with companies where she gained positive feedback from construction workers.
After graduating, Victoria secured a place as a‘chicklet’ in one of the Entrepreneurial Spark hatcheries. She then went onto win the second prize of £5,000 in SIE’s New Ventures Competition at the 2015 SIE Annual Student Enterprise Summit. Since then, Victoria has since been out to display the Recoil Kneepad at a trade show in Las Vegas.
Next steps for VH Innovation
Having focused full time on this project for over a year and a half, Victoria has now finalised her design and plans to manufacture and distribute it herself in the UK. She is also currently in discussions with a potential licencing partner in the US. VH Innovation is now accepting pre-orders on their website.
If you want to find out more about VH Innovation and their first product Recoil Kneepads, visit the websites;
www.vhinnovation.com
www.recoilkneepads.com