StartupCafe

August comes from the latin word Augustus which means great or very important. When used as an adjective it can mean ‘inspiring admiration’. And yet, the month of August has a terrible reputation…business is slow, work piles up on office desks and decisions get postponed as people take vacation. It can also be thought of as the deadliest month for hospital patients as it is when the annual intake of junior doctors arrives…remind me, how does August compare to other months in relation to death rates in hospitals?

American journalist David Plotz once wrote an article citing all sorts of reasons that August is a cr*p month, describing it as a ‘whimsical invention’ and calling for it to be reduced to 10 days as part an August Reform! So I dedicated five whole minutes to finding some good things to say about it… and found a few. 

August is National Inventors Month which celebrates invention and creativity – all month long. National Inventors Month was started in 1998 by the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors’ Digest magazine. I did a brief search on top August inventions, and my online excursion took me to the following cool inventions of August 2009…

• British engineers launched driverless, green vehicles that work by letting passengers pick their destination on a touch-screen, and then driving them straight to their chosen destination without stopping at other locations first.
• Scientists from the University of Utah, USA, invented a liquid condom for females that solidifies when it makes contact with semen. The liquid gel works by trapping particles larger than 50nm such as sperm and any viruses that might be contained in it – e.g. HIV, herpes virus and the papilloma virus – making it a protectant as well a contraceptive.  I think it’s still undergoing clinical trials.
• An Edinburgh-based company revealed a new invention which they’ve named Oyster.  It’s supposed to be a new type of wave power system with an easy to sustain, onshore base, which uses hydraulics to bring high-pressure water to shore and transforms the pressure to electricity. It works by pumping water through a pipeline to shore, where it is turned into electricity by generators. The pumping occurs when the underwater oscillator with pistons is turned on by the waves.

There are lots more I could list… 

So there, Mr Plotz!  August isn’t so lame after all!

Now I’m curious to see what inventions or innovations August 2010 will bring to the table…