Concentrate

There is one popular BBC TV show called ‘Dragon’s Den. The format for this show, originally started in Japan, is that new entrepreneurs with original ideas seek support and investment from five successful business owners by explaining their ideas and the current state of their business. It is encouraging to see people from various backgrounds-students, business owners, and retired nurses-pitch the products and services of their own designs with passion, dreaming of becoming successful business owners themselves.

Among the people that try out for this program are designers who look for investment, hoping to materialize their design items. One of the designers that appeared on the show is Mark Champkins, the founder of a company called ‘Concentrate.’ After graduating from RCA, Mark Champkins worked for Helen Hamlyn Research Centre, known for its diverse research on ‘Inclusive design.’ For two years, he worked on projects for education related design, including school furniture and facilities, then started his own business based on what he learned from the project. What he continuously realized was that children have to concentrate to play and study well. From this he got his business idea, and went on looking for answers to what causes children to concentrate, and what elements distract them. The effort to find solutions to these problems by designing products that are simple and inexpensive was the beginning of the Concentrate. He set his prices between five and twenty British pounds, making it affordable for everyone. Concentrate’s design strategy is to design objects that are needed by schools and parents by working close with them. They formed focus groups composed of teachers, students, and parents to figure out their problems, and then consulted these groups to evaluate the solutions proposed by Concentrate.