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3 Minutes With James DysonWhat has been the secret to your personal success? Failure has been my biggest secret to success.It took more than 5,000 prototypes before I succeeded in creating my first bagless vacuum cleaner. Today we have over 3,000 engineers and scientists at Dyson who are actively encouraged to fail; it's all part of the design process.What would you like to change most about the UK? There is an ever-increasing shortage of skilled engineers in the UK which must be rectified. Britain has 37,000 engineering vacancies a year, but produces just 22,000 engineering graduates.What would you like to change most about your sector/industry? The engineering sectors image needs to change. When engineering is mentioned, people envision a man in a boiler suit repairing a cooker but engineering entails so much more than this. We must excite young people about designing and making things.What is your idea of perfect happiness? Working on new ways to solve problems by engineering technology hands-on. I’m lucky as that it is what I do every day!
CV | James DysonProfession:InventorBorn:2 May 1947, Norfolk (age 69)Education:Furniture design, then engineering at the Royal College of ArtFamily:Married, three childrenHobbies:RunningQuote:“Failure is interesting – it’s part of making progress. You never learn from success, but you do learn from failure.” (Interview with Entrepreneur magazine, 2012)
But then we have all had Dysons that blow the release valve as soon as we turn them on, and open the pre filter to reveal a minging hair and dust covered bit of foam.