Wednesday 02 Apr 2014 @ 09:25
Technology Strategy Board
Technology Strategy Board
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Success story - Theatre of dreams
What started out as a sabbatical for a newly
qualified PhD student has ended up as a life in the
theatre.
Dr Ben Todd made the huge leap from academic to
theatre handyman in just one small step: ‘And I haven't regretted a
single day,' he said last week from his headquarters in a little theatre in
London's East End – which now has world-class green credentials
thanks to Ben's ideas on fuel cells and a series of grants from the
Technology Strategy Board.
The frustrating thing is that scientists and engineers can create wonderful things but people don't use them Dr Ben Todd
When Ben finished his
PhD on solid oxide fuel cells at Cambridge
University he decided to take
a complete break. So he volunteered to help out with odd jobs at
the Arcola Theatre, a small Off-Westend theatre
company.
‘The frustrating thing is that scientists and
engineers can create wonderful things but people don't use them,' said
Ben.
Technology in public
‘A theatre is good place to demonstrate technology
because it's not life-dependent but it is hugely demanding and also very
public.' So instead of going back to engineering as he had planned, Ben
devoted his time to technology demonstration projects at the
Arcola.
‘We did a load of work around low energy. From the
beginning we've been interested in driving down carbon emissions. Over the
years we have honed our understanding of where big energy savings come from
matching the right power generating and power-consuming technologies to make it
easy for users to do the right thing. All of our work builds from that
principle 'said Ben.
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