Medical inventor Michael Korn has won this year’s Dragons’ Den competition organised by the JC and the London Jewish Cultural Centre. The 29 year-old was the runaway winner with his KwickScreen invention - a versatile, retractable screen that creates temporary partitions between hospital beds.
Mr Korn, who studied at Cambridge, Imperial College and the Royal College of Art, says: "My sister worked in hospitals and explained the practical problems of hospital-acquired infections - such as blood from syringes getting spattered from one bed to another. Plus I visited a few hospitals and saw there was a huge waste of space. I thought: 'why can't they just divide up the space in a clever way?'
"They can be used as physical barriers between beds, still giving staff visibility of the patient, or as privacy and dignity screens and can help accommodate modest Orthodox Jewish patients."
Mr Korn has invested his own money into the venture, which has been endorsed by the NHS.
The final took place at the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s Ivy House in north London last night. The judging panel comprised Bernie Myers - Former managing director of N M Rothschild Sons Ltd; Patsy Bloom - Founder of Pet Plan; Jonathan Kestenbaum, chief executive of Nesta, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; Lisa Ronson, marketing director of Heron International; Michael Ziff, shoe salesman and chief executive of Barrats Priceless Ltd and JC business editor Candice Krieger.
Mr Korn fought off competition from the four other hopefuls; Meditemptatts, a range of temporary hypoallergenic transfers for for sufferers of invisible medical conditions such as allergies and epilepsy; Snoozechair, a reclining moving baby chair; to help babies sleep; Room Renovator, a box of accessories to help consumers to achieve a designer-look home at an affordable price and Doggie Macs, a range of waterproof dog coats.
See next Friday’s JC for the judges verdict and a full interview with Michael Korn.