Jane ní Dhulchaointigh

Born	Kilkenny, Ireland
Alma mater	Royal College of Art 2004
Known for	Sugru

Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh (nee dool-quen-teekh^[1]) is an Irish artist, designer, inventor and entrepreneur. She won the 2018 European Inventor Award for Small and Medium Enterprises for Sugru, a mouldable glue that was described by Time magazine as one of the world's best inventions.

Early life and education

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Ní Dhulchaointigh was born in Kilkenny. She grew up on a farm and was constantly repairing broken items. She studied sculpture. At the age of 23 she moved to London to study product design at the Royal College of Art.^[2] Here she came up with the idea of Sugru, a mouldable elastomer that can be used to repair broken items.^[2] She combined bathroom sealant with wood-dust powder, which resulted in bouncy ball that looked like wood.^[3] She graduated in 2004.^[4]

Career

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She partnered with James Carrigan and Roger Ashby to found the company FormFormForm in 2005 and develop Sugru.^[2] She spent 8,000 hours in the lab developing the product, working with silicone scientists.^[2] She demonstrated an early product at Electric Picnic.^[5] She won a £35,000 grant from Nesta.^[6] They ran out of funding in 2008, and used social media and crowdfunding to raise enough money to buy machinery, develop packaging and design a website.^[4] They went on to secure £250,000 from Lacomp PLC in 2006.^[7] The product eventually launched in December 2009 and sold out within 6 hours.^[8] They were featured in Boing Boing and Wired.^[4] She named Sugru after the Irish word súgradh, which means play.^[8]

Sugru is sold in over 6,000 shops worldwide.^[2] In 2010 Time magazine as one of the world's best inventions.^[9] She delivered a Ted Talk at TEDxDublin in 2012.^[10] Ní Dhulchaointigh was named as the Design Entrepreneur of the year by the London Design Festival in 2013.^[11] She launched Sugru in B&Q shops across the UK and Ireland using a YouTube video to tell their customers about their product.^[11]^[12]

By 2013, Sugru had been used on all seven continents.^[6] Ní Dhulchaointigh was selected by EY as one of their top entrepreneurs of the year.^[13] She was invited to give a keynote at 99U at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Her keynote, The Magic Is in The Process, discussed the six-year process from hmmm to eureka and wow!.^[14] They developed a foil handle for fencers with fencing equipment manufacturer Leon Paul. In 2014 Sugru was described by The Guardian as a wonder material.^[3] FormFormForm were estimated to turn over £3.6 million a year in 2016.^[15]

Ní Dhulchaointigh spoke at InspireFest in 2017, where she estimated that Sugru had been used to fix more than ten million items.^[16]^[17] They launched a Family-Safe formula that allows children to get involved with making.^[18] She won the 2018 European Inventor Award for Small and Medium Enterprises.^[19]^[20] She is the first Irish person to win a European Inventor Award in the history of the prize.^[5] The company sold to Tesa in 2018 for £7.6 million.^[21] She is part of the Awesome Foundation, who donate £1,000 into a different idea every month.^[4] From 2023, she has been a director on the board of the Irish home building non-profit Common Knowledge.^[22]

References

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^ European Patent Office (24 April 2018). Jane ní Dhulchaointigh & team - Sugru: multi-purpose mouldable glue. Retrieved 12 December 2024 – via YouTube.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Office, European Patent. "Jane ní Dhulchaointigh and team (Ireland)". www.epo.org. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b Hickey, Shane (16 March 2014). "Sugru, the new wonder material: 'I made a thing like wood, but it bounced'". the Guardian. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh on The Great Discontent (TGD)". The Great Discontent. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b "Sugru inventor Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh wins European Inventor Award". The Irish Times. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b Sinclair, Emma (24 June 2013). "How 'best invention' Sugru went from B&Q to the North Pole". Daily Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ "Jane ní Dhulchaointigh - Entrepreneur of the Year". Entrepreneur of the Year. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ ^a ^b McCue, TJ. "21st Century Duct Tape - Sugru". Forbes. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Dyk, Deirdre Van (11 November 2010). "The 50 Best Inventions of 2010 - TIME". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ TEDx Talks (2 October 2012), Can We All Be Fixers?: Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh at TEDxDUBLIN, archived from the original on 15 December 2021, retrieved 21 November 2018
^ ^a ^b "Story". sugru.com. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Sugru (11 November 2011), meet Sugru, archived from the original on 15 December 2021, retrieved 21 November 2018
^ "Entrepreneurs Archive - Entrepreneur of the Year". Entrepreneur of the Year. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Inc., Behance (9 August 2013). "Jane ni Dhulchaointigh: The Magic Is in The Process". 99U by Behance. Retrieved 21 November 2018. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
^ "Meet the woman behind Sugru, the world's first mouldable glue". Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Inspirefest HQ (14 July 2017), Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh, Sugru | Inspirefest 2017, retrieved 21 November 2018
^ Kennedy, John (13 July 2017). "Sugru's Jane Ní Dhulchaointigh on making a good idea stick". Silicon Republic. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ "Family Safe Formula". sugru.com. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Office, European Patent. "Outstanding inventors from France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and the US honoured with European Inventor Award 2018". www.epo.org. Archived from the original on 23 January 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ Office, European Patent. "Mouldable glue gives new life to broken possessions: Jane ní Dhulchaointigh named European Inventor Award 2018 finalist". www.epo.org. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ "Sugru: how a brilliant invention became a financial disaster". inews.co.uk. 5 June 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^ "Our Board". The Common Knowledge Centre. Retrieved 16 February 2024.