The Big Welsh Idea

Tuesday 17 February 2015, 18:00

Steve Austins

Editor, BBC Radio Wales

Tagged with:

radio wales

I love working in a creative industry. Every day this job is about coming up with ideas and bringing ideas to life. But I often envy those who can go for a coffee with a pen and pencil and come up with an idea that can change our lives forever. And, all told, we Welsh are pretty good at that. We can claim the origins of mathematical signage (see Pembrokeshire’s Robert Recorde’s plus and equal signs below), the modern microphone and even beating the Wright Brothers to the first powered flight. On Thursday, we’re spending a day saluting these very people.

Robert Recorde's plus and equal sings

It’s called The Big Welsh Idea and it’s a day celebrating the best Welsh innovations and understanding the creative state of the nation today. This is what’s planned:

9am - On Morning Call, Oliver Hides asks what you would like to see invented.
11.30 - As part of Jason Mohammad, author and broadcaster Dan Anthony presents The Creative Mine; a documentary about The Patent Office (now the UK Intellectual Property Office), 25 years after its move to Newport.
12.00 - Jason poses The Big Welsh Idea Challenge - a Dragons Den style contest for teams of students from four Welsh universities, all pitching ideas to an expert panel.
1pm -Tom Price (sitting in for Eleri Sion) finds some of the weird and wonderful patents issued over the years
6.30 - Wales at Work debates the creative state of the nation and its future.
Throughout the day, Dan Anthony presents a countdown of the Top 10 Big Welsh Ideas and there’ll be lots more online and on our social media.

Elsewhere this week, some big interviews on Jason Mohammad. The Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Owen Smith, took your calls on Monday. On Tuesday, it was the turn of UKIP’s MEP for Wales, Nathan Gill. And on Wednesday, the lines are open to the Director of BT in Wales, Ann Beynon.

As Eastenders turns 30, Pam St Clement – better known to millions as Pat Butcher – was Eleri Sion’s special guest on Monday along with Michela Chiappa who cooked up a feast on the show. The third part of her brilliant Welsh Italian Way is on Saturday at 1.30.