Vacuum cleaner king does a Buffett

God bless Great Britain. It tries so hard to punch above its weight – yet remarkably it does. Britain is the home of the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith and of course the best vacuum cleaners in the world.

Well it would be, if James Dyson hadn’t moved his manufacturing offshore to India. Still it’s the design that counts. But isn’t the iPod deigned by that British genius Jonathan Ive – even though its actually made in China – of course the profit goes to Apple in California, USA though.

So its pretty much accepted that the Brits ‘punch above their weight’ – though as usual in Britain (sometimes called the UK or England to confuse the rest of the world) things aren’t that easy.

So called ‘Engineering’ is in decline in the UK with many students opting out of Maths early on , or not really being able to figure out what a calculator is, yet alone a slide rule.

Step in James Dyson, the inventor of the ‘bag-less’ vacuum cleaner, the man who made it sexy for ‘guys’ to do the cleaning, the man who made vacuum cleaners more technical than the PC (we think that the Dyson is now up to 12 cyclones and turbines or something like that).

Dyson is setting up a school to encourage and inspire engineering as a path for a new generation of students. The Dyson School of Design Innovation in Bath would be a state school for 2,500 youngsters aged 14 to 18. Over half the funds (est £22m) will come from Dyson, the rest from the government.
Dyson said: If we want to continue in the footsteps of Brunel, to innovate and engineer exciting and useful products, we need to start with education.

He also added: Our choice now is either to see Britain’s jobs of tomorrow vanish to Mumbai or Shanghai or to educate the next generation in the skills of invention and business-building.

All very ironic as it took years of political conflict and pain under the Thatcher government to convince the Brits that they’re actually pretty bad at building things – and that perhaps they’re better at designing them, and getting others to build them for them.

Perhaps Mr Dyson would get more ‘bang for his buck’ if he built the schools in India, next to his factories.

Source 

Dyson school ‘to boost engineers’   BBC News