Invention Of Clockwork Radio

Neither clockwork nor radio was a new invention in 1991, but combining the two technologies to invent the clockwork radio in that year show Trevor Baylis to fame and vastly improved life for thousands of people in Africa.

Early in 1991 inventor Trevor Baylis (England) saw a television documentary about the spread of AIDS in Africa, which asserted that the death toll would be far lower if people were better informed about about the disease and about safe sex. But the dissemination of such information to remote villages was almost impossible because there were no televisions, and radios were rarely used because there was no electricity supply and batteries were expensive.

Baylis, who has spent much of his career invention devices to help the disadvantaged, was moved to do something about the situation. Instead of inventing an alternative means of communication, he invented a was of powering radios in places with no electricity: "I found a very small DC electric motor, which I knew when run in reverse would generate electricity as a dynamo, and I put that into the chuck of an ordinary hand brace [drill] and then stuck it into a bench vice. I held the little motor, having joined the two wires to a cheap transistor radio, and then, as I turned the handle, I got the first bark of sound from that radio. So I knew then I was on my way, that 'Eureka moment' if you like." Months of development followed the Eureka moment before Baylis filed a patent for a geared clockwork system that could power a radio for 14 minutes after 2 minutes' winding.

The inventions was inspired by broadcast information, its purpose was to broadcast information, and a manufacturer was eventually found through broadcast information. Christopher Staines and Rory Stear (both South Africa) saw Baylis demonstrating his invention on the television programme Tomorrow's World, and helped him to establish BayGen Power Industries to manufacture the radio. BayGen changed not only the lives of villagers who now had access to broadcast information through the radio, but also the lives of hundreds of disadvantaged workers who benefited from a policy of recruiting disabled people to work in BayGen's factory.

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison