Dr Rossa Brugha joins RB Innovation Hack: tackling air pollution with innovation

Dr Rossa Brugha answers some questions on his day as a panelist for an 'innovation hack' run by Lions Health, Save the Children and RB.

Dr Rossa Brugha, a specialist in children’s respiratory disease at NHLI, was asked to sit on the panel for the event, and he kindly told us how he found the day.

What was the #RBInnovation Hack?

The RB & Lions Health Innovation Hack was an event which threw a group of industry research and development scientists and marketers into a small room with a group of "creative catalysts" - advertising people in very trendy glasses - and locked the door for 24 hours with a brief for them to come up with an idea that could help protect children in India from air pollution. 

To introduce a sense of competition they were split into 3 teams,. Everybody was overstimulated with coffee and small croissants filled with sugary fruits. Along with a very senior person from Save the Children India (Bidisha Pillai, Director of Advocacy, Campaigns and Communication), whose role it was to give everybody some insight into what might work in rural and urban India, I was there to answer their questions about air pollution and children's health, as well as watch how industry approaches these kind of idea-generating events. I fully intend to steal these techniques and bring them back to our lab. I wore my contact lenses and watched how the facilitator ran things. She was excellent.

What ideas were put forward?

The teams came up with an air purifying baby pacifier featuring a filter to minimise the inhalation of pollutants; a pollution-trapping paint which would comprise a special technology to brush on building walls and buses to remove particulate matter and therefore improve air quality; and a lung strengthening musical toy that strengthens children’s lungs, whilst also creating social discussion around the topic of environmental air pollution which was voted the winning idea by the judges. 

Did this work as a forum for idea generation?

Yes - it was genuinely interesting watching R&D people bouncing the science around between them and the creative people throwing out wild ideas, which would then bemuse everyone, and occasionally be brilliant. The best aspect was a total lack of hierarchy, which in science we also try to avoid but the nature of the student/supervisor relationship can make it hard to throw out wild ideas without worrying about looking stupid. The participants freely said that getting out of the office, and away from their bosses, in order to put their minds to something completely outside their usual brief, was a really good way of approaching a problem.

What was the highlight of the day for you?

I had to sit at a desk at the front of a hall, judging presentations without releasing an inner Simon Cowell, watching scientists who make Durex and Dettol try and solve one of the biggest problems facing humanity. What's not to like?