News / Engineering
Graduates win award for ‘complete game-changer’ period product
The founders of Bristol-based business Eleria have been crowned the winners of a nationwide engineering award.
University of Bristol graduates Kira Goode and Monica Wai were praised for their design of a portable sterilising case that aims to make the cleaning of menstrual cups quicker and more discreet, aiming to revolutionise the period product market.
The competition, launched by the Royal Academy of Engineering in partnership with Dragons’ Den investor Deborah Meaden, asked entrants to share their ideas for inventions that could help make daily life more sustainable. It encouraged people to release their “inner engineer”.
Meaden called Goode and Wai’s invention “smart, practical and really innovative”.
The menstrual cup sterilisation case designed by Goode and Wai – photo: Royal Academy of Engineering
Congratulating the winners, Dr Hayaatun Sillem, CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “It’s been brilliant to see such innovative and original ideas for sustainable inventions and to have discovered Eleria, the menstrual cup portable cleaning and sterilising case, which will help women and those who menstruate to use a menstrual cup on the move, prevent landfill from menstrual products and save money.”
On Eleria’s triumph at the awards, Amrit Chandan, chief executive of Acerleron and judge of the Everyday Engineering competition said: “The Eleria menstrual cup portable cleaning and sterilising cup is a great example of invention which seems so obvious when it is created, solving real world problems.”
Goode and Wai, both 24, founded Eleria (formerly known as CupSquared) in 2021 and received £75,000 in funding from the University of Bristol in their innovative effort to “help and improve the lives of menstruators”.
Kira and Monica calculated that those using a menstrual cup and their cleaner will save £564 over five years and use 96.6 per cent less single-use plastic (from disposable menstrual products) over ten years.
“It’s been a complete gamechanger for us,” said Goode, speaking about the competition.
Goode and Wai will receive a mentorship from Meaden and an engineering entrepreneur position in the Femtech space through the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub.
Eleria was one of the three finalists for the award. The other two nominees were EcoPonics, a customisable vertical farming unit for gardens, invented by Anvith Sujay and Ashwin Madhusudhanan (both 16, Bristol) and Phyto, a hanging pendant light made from 3D printed ‘nuisance’ algae-based bioplastic, invented by Sam Bird Smith (23, London).
Main photo : Royal Academy of Engineering
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