A BBC programme starring North East businesswoman Sara Davies will begin in 2024 - and is looking for people from the region to get involved.
Making It with Sara Davies, which is produced by North East-based Twenty Six 03, will begin next year and will feature the businesswoman's entrepreneurial skills.
Each programme will feature ordinary people who think they’ve come up with a brilliant or innovative idea for a new product but just don’t know where to start to see if it could ever become a reality.
This will then see Sara and her team of experts meet all of the aspiring inventors to help develop their initial ideas with the aim of turning them into fully-functioning, and potentially even money-making products.
Sara has been a successful businesswoman since the age of 21 when she spotted a gap in the craft market when she invented an envelope-making tool for card makers.
With the help of her engineer dad, she tested and refined her product before she made a prototype and started to sell it.
Since then, her life has changed, and her personal success has seen her become a major investor in some of the UK’s most successful businesses through her role in Dragons’ Den.
Sara said: “There are thousands of people across the UK who have brilliant and big ideas but are stuck on how to get started, so I am delighted that I am going to be able to help these wonderfully innovative people develop and make their inventing dreams a reality.
"I can’t wait to see what ideas are out there and get them into our workshop of dreams!”
Helen Munson, Commissioning Editor for BBC Daytime, added: “Where better to make a programme about inventing than the North East?
"This is where Joseph Swann invented the lightbulb, and George Stephenson became the ‘Father of the Railways’. We are in good company! And with the brilliant Sara Davies at the helm we know we are going to unearth brand new inventions for the 21st Century.
"Gateshead based Twenty Six 03 will be working with a host of local off screen talent to bring this exciting new series to BBC One.”
Making It with Sara Davies will be on screens in 2024, it was commissioned for BBC One and iPlayer by Head of BBC Daytime and Early Peak Commissioning Rob Unsworth, the Commissioning Editor for BBC Daytime is Helen Munson.
The programme is produced by Twenty Six 03’s Duncan Gray and Antonia Hurford-Jones with funding from North East Screen.
Duncan Gray and Antonia Hurford-Jones, executive producers for Twenty Six 03, said: “We’re thrilled to get the chance to be making this series with the brilliant Sara Davies and our fantastic team here in Gateshead.
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"Ingenuity in the UK is alive and well and we’re already getting in some amazing ideas.”
The aspiring inventors will be invited to our workshop to meet with a group of talented product designers and engineers to see if their idea can be brought to life as a real working example of what it might be in action.
If you are interested in finding out more, then email casting@twentysix03.com.
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