Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

He will be regaling leading executives and international trade influencers on a life and career that could be scripted for a ‘Ripping Yarn’ series of adventures. Sportsman, showman, stuntman, inventor – Baylis has done it all. And he just happens to be a highly rated motivational speaker into the bargain.

Even Cambridge’s most celebrated high priests of hi-tech eulogise over some of clever Trevor’s brightest inventions. In 1991, after watching a programme about the spread of AIDS in Africa, Trevor set about developing the wind up radio.

His first working prototype ran for 14 minutes and in 1994 he was featured on BBC’s ‘Tomorrow’s World’. The product’s potential was immediately recognised and the following year, the BayGen Power Industries was set up in Cape Town employing disabled workers to manufacture the Freeplay wind up radio.

In 1996 the radio won the BBC ‘Design Award for Best Product and Best Design’.

Four years later, he Invented the much talked about Electric Shoe. It certainly gave Richard Branson a shock! The electric shoe charges a mobile phone battery whilst walking.

In June 200, Trevor completed a 100-mile walk across the Namib Desert to raise money for the Mines Advisory Group whilst wearing the device and called Branson from the middle of the desert – presumably to let him know that this piece of the world wasn’t Virgin territory.

As early as 1982 he had invented and developed a range of products for the disabled called Orange Aids.

Always concerned about the neglect of inventors, inventions and intellectual property, he set up Trevor Baylis Brands plc in 2002 to help inventors get their products to market. He was awarded the OBE in 1997 for services to Africa and the same year was honoured with the Presidential Gold Medal by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

He is also a former winner of the Exporter of the Year Award for outstanding export achievement. Trevor has earned rich praise for his addresses to organisations as varied as the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and the European Patent Office.

Born in Kilburn, London, in 1937 and brought up in Southall, the young Trevor was always destined to be a man of action on several fronts.

An excellent swimmer, he represented Great Britain at the age of 15. The following year he joined the Soil Laboratory in Southall where he also took mechanical and structural engineering at the local technical college on day release.

At 20 he began his National Service as a physical training instructor and swam for both the Army and Imperial Services. In 1961, he joined Purley Pools as a salesman and then progressed to research and development. He also started his own swimming pool company.

Trevor also became a stunt man and in 1970 became “Rameses 11” performing an underwater escapology act in a Berlin Circus and appearing in numerous TV shows.

He went on to be feted on ‘This is Your Life’ with Michael Aspel and his 1999 autobiography, ‘Clock This,’ appeared on the best sellers list.