Designers Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta with the Moss Table (please credit Toby Summerskill)C

A LIVING table is among the exhibits at an Innovation Festival coming to Anglia Ruskin University.

The Moss table will be on show at the Design Icons exhibition, which visits the university next month. It was designed by Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta, who collaborated with scientists to create the table. It uses what is called ‘biophotovoltaic’ technology, which allows the table to use the moss stored inside as it produces energy through photosynthesis to charge a battery. It won 
the People’s Choice poll for it to be included in the festival.

Nineteen other innovations will be on display, including the Dulux Paint PaintPod Roller System, Easy Breathe asthma inhaler, Evian Action Water Bottle and iCAP Spectrometer.

“What’s particularly exciting about the products we’ve selected is their diversity,” said Tim Evans, director of Think Product Design, who was one of the experts to select 19 of the products to be shown from a shortlist of over 90 submissions.

“We had a number of criteria for selecting the final products including innovation, 
market success and pure design aesthetics, but just as important was to select products that would interest a cross section of the population, so it was great to be able to put a hi-tech ophthalmoscope alongside the Evian water bottle.”

The exhibition runs at the Ruskin Gallery, on East Road, from Thursday, February 8 - Thursday, February 23, and is open from 10am-5pm. As a living exhibit, the Moss 
table will only be on display from February 8-February 10.