Select a region
A rain-resistant, folding, paper bicycle helmet has won the prestigious international James Dyson Award for clever inventions.
The EcoHelmet is made from recycled paper woven into a honeycomb structure that protects the wearer’s head from impact from any direction.
It is designed for those using bike-sharing schemes who may not always carry protective headwear.
World-famous inventor Dyson praised it as an “incredibly elegant” solution to an “obvious problem”.
The prize, which is open to university level students or recent graduates, was won by design grad Isis Shiffer, of the Pratt Institute of Design in New York, who bagged a cool £30,000 for claiming top spot.
It beat a wearable asthma management system and smart contact lenses that can measure glucose levels to the award.
Isis said: “I was lucky enough to be studying at Royal College of Art and the Imperial College of London for a semester, and was granted access to Imperial’s crash lab.
“They had a European standard helmet crash set-up that allowed me to gather enough data on EcoHelmet’s proprietary honeycomb configuration to know it was viable and worth developing.”
There were more than 3,200 serious injuries to cyclists on the roads in 2015, the Department for Transport said.
According to a 2016 study of 64,000 injured cyclists by the University of New South Wales in Australia, wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of serious head injury by almost 70%.
Dyson added: “EcoHelmet solves an obvious problem in an incredibly elegant way.
“But its simplicity belies an impressive amount of research and development. I look forward to seeing EcoHelmets used in bike shares across the world.”
