As a philosophy graduate working in high-end jewellery retail, it took just an advertisement from a charity and a little self-analysis for Amanda Jones to realise that her personal fulfilment lay elsewhere.

The advertisement called for ideas to help to improve the lives of people in some of the poorest regions of the world and, through discussions with James Brown, a university friend and product design engineer, the Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System (Ross) was conceived.

Put simply, Ross allows people to collect water from a local source and, by pushing it home in a special wheeled container, purify it for domestic use. The gearing in the container creates a pressure differential across a filtration membrane, allowing only decontaminated water to pass through, purifying the water as it moves. The system was well received and after a few long days in the office the pair managed to gain financing for the product’s development. Ross won £35,000 in the University of Oxford 21st-Century Challenge 2007 competition, was awarded £16,000 by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise, came second in The Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation awards and made the final five in this year’s HSBC Unipreneurs competition.

“We’ve been incredibly fortunate. We developed our own prototype, we’re completely self funded, through grants and awards, and, a year on, we still hold all the rights to our company and intellectual property, we have money in the bank and a number of investment offers in the wings, so we couldn’t be happier,” Jones says.

With several preorders and letters of intent, the duo’s company, Red Button, is now working with an NGO in India to test Ross in the field and is negotiating with manufacturers in India and Africa so that the units can be produced close to the regions of greatest demand.

www.thisisredbutton.co.uk

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