What I learned from reading Invention: A Life by James Dyson.
In many ways, I have come to live what might seem to be a contradictory life.
Part in the future, part in the past.
Most of my waking time is spent in our labs, surrounded by Dyson's engineers and scientists, exploring ideas that we hope might shape the future.
Ours is a life of challenge and frustration, all of which is a fulfilling pastime.
But I also have an interest verging on obsession with the past, with the stories, artifacts and spaces that have shaped our world.
Repairing the old and adding to the new has become as much an important part of my life as inventing for the future.
Renovation might sound an odd enthusiasm for a modern designer and engineer.
Yet there is much to learn from the past and from those who have shaped the world before us.
It is about understanding and celebrating the progress that has been achieved, learning from it and building on it.
Let me give you an example.
The whittle jet engine, which we have lovingly restored to its original specification, and which we fire up from time to time in the parking lot at the Dyson headquarters, is another example of restoration of the past.
Though it needed love when we took it on.
The whittle engine is not some old world object.
It's the embodiment of Frank Whittle's revolutionary concept, a way of solving the problem of how aircraft could fly at much greater height, speed and smoothness than they could possibly do.
In 1930, the idea that he formulated at the age of 23 to form a new aero engine was as extraordinary as it was fragile.
And who wanted to believe Whittle was right?
Certainly not government experts.
He had to pursue his project alone.
Yet in doing so, he revolutionized flight for everyone and changed the course of the second world war.
While the widow engine is perhaps my biggest inspiration, there are a great many similar designs and engineering icons scattered around our campuses, each with its own story.