Hey I’m Ruth, I am an inventor and engineer from the U.K. I grew up wanting to be a lawyer but had to take an engineering class for one of my exams, I choose resistant materials (design and technology) and as part of my coursework I was expected to do a project on storage but I didn’t want too, so I complained and sulked and instead my teacher challenged me to design something for his dad who had had a stroke. He needed to stay active and couldn’t have a stairlift.

So I invented the StairSteady and long story short at 16 was Young Engineer for Britain. I had patented the product and decided that instead of going to uni I would have a go at selling it and bringing it to market. I started a company from my parents dining room table with £1200, a laptop and a phone. The StairSteady is now sold across the U.K. and Europe, we license it into Canada, America and Australia and along the way I started a few other companies and worked on other projects, but…

I very nearly missed out on a career in engineering that I love, because I didn’t see people like me being engineers and didn’t know how exciting it was. I hated the idea that there were potentially hundreds and thousands of other young people- particularly girls- who were in the same position. Who didn’t realise that engineering could be for them.

This is my story on the BBC One Show

Determined to do something about the issues I’d faced, my friend Shawn (who also was a previous young engineer for Britain - that’s how we met) and I decided that we wanted to find a way to get more young people understanding engineering and science and at least hopefully see it as an option (particularly girls). Research showed that the 4-11 age group was super important so we set up the Kids Invent Stuff youtube channel.

Each month we set a different invention challenge and 4-11 year old send in their invention ideas as pictures or videos and we bring one to life. We film all the ups and downs and put it on our channel.

I’ve also started my own channel because I have other crazy things I want to build and representation matters, we need more of us shouting out into the youtube space.

I also host stuff and do lots of public speaking in schools and corporates. I recently wrote a children’s book- The Inventors Workshop- all about 10 inventions that changed the world. It’s published by Magic Cat and beautifully illustrated by the talented Stacey Thomas, it’s something I never thought I would do as I’m dyslexic so writing can be tricky.