"I grew frustrated that the placement of my furniture and electrical equipment was always restricted by the access to and lack of electrical wall sockets. I live in a Victorian home where the problem is really bad, but even new homes suffer as technology increasingly becomes more and more part of our everyday lives. There are never enough sockets, and the bird’s nest of extension cables and multi-adaptors is untidy, unsafe, and ugly. I tend to try and hide them, yet that creates more frustration in my attempts to be ‘green’ as I need access to switch them off and/or unplug them. Existing sockets have not changed in 70 or so years but our use of them has changed dramatically and I believe the distribution system is in need of a dramatic overhaul, which is what I set out to do with the AllSocket System."

The concept was my final year project of an Engineering Product Design Degree, for which I gained a First Class Honours Degree in 2008. Further development took place under the University's Enterprise Associate Scheme, where the concept earned £6000 'mini grant' from the Emerald Fund to protect the Intellectual Property with a patent application, establish market need and secure further pre-commercial funding for prototyping. In 2009 AllSocket won The Ideal Home Show's Concept Product Award, where the 'Mark 3' model was displayed and voted for by the public. Also later that year won through to second round finalist in the James Dyson Award, and was featured in MondoArc, Yanko Design and several other design and architecture publications.