Sometimes the simple ideas are the best. With hindsight, a wheeled water tank with a built-in filter, powered by the movement of the wheels, seems like the most logical thing in the world. However, this innovative idea has enabled contaminated water to be made safe to drink without the use of chemicals. Now three Glasgow-based friends are putting the final touches to their new water purifier.

James Brown and Nicky Pang, both 23, are studying product design engineering on a course run jointly by Glasgow University and the Glasgow School of Art. Amanda Jones, 23, is a philosophy graduate of Glasgow University and grew up near Brown in Cambridge.

"We'd worked on a few projects together, designing flyers, and we found we worked really well together," says Nicky, who met Brown at university. They formed their Dumbarton-based company, Red Button Design, in November 2006.

While their idea may be simple, the far-reaching implications of the invention across the third world are remarkable. Up to 1.1 billion people, around one-sixth of the world's population, do not have access to clean water which is safe to drink. In recognition of the problem, the UN has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. Dirty water is one of the biggest threats to health in third-world countries. Every year, 2.2 million people die from diseases caused by a lack of fresh water and basic sanitation.

The motivation for their invention came when they saw an advertisement by international charity Water Aid asking for ideas to help solve the problem of contaminated water in developing countries. It was while chatting over coffee that the friends had a eureka moment. "Water Aid gave a whole load of statistics about how many people were dying every day and put in stark, real terms, the size of the problem," recalls James.

"We all consider ourselves to be pretty well-informed on global issues but the numbers floored us and many people in the industry, who are not directly involved with water sanitisation, underestimate the scale of the problem - 10,000 people die every day," says Amanda.

Initially, they wanted to come up with an effective way to transport larger amounts of water. "You go down to your local supermarket and you see people with little tartan shopping trolleys and I just pointed out, Can we not just wheel it?' Surely that's got to be easier?"

After much redesigning, they came up with Ross (Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System) which allows people to collect water from the nearest source and make it safe to drink via an internal filter system used during the walk home. The lightweight barrel is filled through a sediment pre-filter, then the motion of the wheels drives an internal pump which further purifies the water. Ross is effective on viral, microbial, parasitic and chemical contaminants. This means people don't have to make long journeys to clean water sources and reduces queuing at clean water sources.

Rather surprisingly, given the subsequent enthusiasm for the product, the group never heard back from the Water Aid competition. "To be fair, what we entered was a very long way away from what we have now. It was the seed."

An amended, more detailed design won the Big Idea design competition at Glasgow University, which saw them shortlisted for the national competition. It was while pitching an idea to a panel as part of this competition that the magnitude of the invention began to sink in. "We got some really good feedback. In fact, one of the judges stopped us midway through our pitch and said, I don't think you have any idea of the potential of this'," recalls James. From then on, momentum gathered. The design also won a runners-up prize in the environment category of the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards in October 2007. The £4500 prize money included in-kind support to help develop their business plan with accountancy services and patent support. "It just continued. Every time we'd do a pitch, we'd up our predicted sales figures and we'd be cringing and they'd nod and say, Yes, that's quite a conservative figure'," says Amanda.

One of the high points in the development of the product was an appearance on the BBC programme Dragon's Den. Under the unrelenting glare of five critical business success stories, many budding entrepreneurs have curled up and died. Red Button braved the gauntlet and emerged from the show with the backing of not just one, but all five dragons in an unprecedented result.

At the time of filming, Pang was in India on a research project related to Ross. James and Amanda spent more than two hours pitching their business plan to dragons and were offered the requested £50,000 for a 10% stake in the business.

The decision to take part in the programme, which was broadcast last month, was not to raise funds but something the team describe as a "PR and marketing gamble".

"It was a risk, and one we were very much in two minds about," admits Amanda, who describes the experience as terrifying. "When you see us coming up the stairs, that is the first time we meet the dragons or see the room. We'd been told to find a marker on the ground and stand on it because if you don't stand there, they won't be able to use the footage."

All the so-called dragons have been in touch since. "Because there are three of us and five of them, it makes things quite difficult, so I communicate with Deborah on a bi-weekly basis."

While Nicky deals with product development, Amanda, the only full-time member of the team, deals with the commercial side and general day-to-day business. James works on the business plan and the financial side as well as the deployment of the business to the developing world.

While James and Nicky have always planned a career in design, albeit after rather than before graduation, Amanda has had a more circuitous route. Before studying philosophy she completed a course in dance teaching and choreography. "I think I was probably always going to run my own business. I don't cope very well with the standard nine-to-five and I kind of piggy-backed on to the skills of these two," she says with a laugh.

All three share a long-standing interest in working with developing countries and were keen to become involved with a humanitarian project. Now they are poised to make their idea a reality. "We are now at the stage where we have a very good concept model," says Nicky. "If we were making a car we would have our concept car but it wouldn't be legal to drive it on the road." They have secured a short-run manufacturer to build prototypes but are then looking to jump to a large-scale manufacturer, probably in the region where the devices will be used.

Tomorrow James and Amanda will travel to India as part of a UK delegation to attend an enterprise event in Delhi run by the UK India Business Council. From there they will travel to the World Water Expo in Mumbai the following week.

While there is much still to do, it seems that having charmed five dragons and won competitions on both sides of the Atlantic, for Red Button Design, their biggest battles are behind them.


Life-saving idea


  • Ross (Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System) is a wheeled barrel for transporting water with a in-built filtration system. The 50-litre tank is filled through a sediment pre-filter then the motion of the wheels drives an internal pump which further purifies the water. Visit www.thisisredbutton.co.uk .
  • Water-related disease is the second-biggest killer of children worldwide, after acute respiratory infections.

Statistics compiled by Water Aid.