Ruth Amos

From teenage inventor to entrepreneur

Ruth Amos is an award-winning British inventor, engineer, entrepreneur and broadcaster who has spent her career exploring how imaginative ideas can become real, working solutions.

Her journey into invention began at the age of 16, when Ruth designed StairSteady, an assistive device created to help people with limited mobility use their stairs safely. Rather than allowing the idea to remain a school project or early prototype, she took it further. Ruth patented the invention, moved into manufacturing and successfully commercialised the product.

That experience gave her first-hand insight into the realities behind innovation. An idea is only the beginning. Turning it into something useful requires creativity, persistence, experimentation and the willingness to continue when the first attempt does not work as planned.

These experiences have shaped Ruth Amos' career and her approach as a speaker. Her stories give audiences a practical understanding of invention as a process rather than a single moment of inspiration.

Bringing children's ideas to life

Ruth is the co-founder of Kids Invent Stuff, a project where children's invention ideas are transformed into ambitious and entertaining engineering builds.

Through Kids Invent Stuff, Ruth has helped create more than 100 inventions. These have ranged from ingenious solutions to everyday challenges to wonderfully impractical machines designed to test what might be possible.

The process is rarely straightforward, and that is exactly what makes the stories valuable. Ruth shares the failures, breakthroughs, unexpected discoveries and problem-solving that happen behind the scenes. Audiences see how ideas evolve when they meet real-world constraints and why experimentation is an essential part of creating something new.

Her work demonstrates that creativity does not depend on always knowing the answer. It often begins with being willing to ask unusual questions, test an idea and learn from whatever happens next.

Engineering on screen

Alongside her work as an inventor and entrepreneur, Ruth Amos has established herself as a professional science and engineering communicator.

She has appeared as a build engineer and presenter on the BBC's The Secret Genius of Modern Life, helping audiences explore the engineering and ideas behind the technology that surrounds them. She has also appeared as an engineer on Masters of Reinvention.

Ruth is a Guinness World Record holder and the author of The Inventor's Workshop, further reflecting her ability to make engineering, invention and problem-solving accessible to a broad audience.

Whether she is building something in a workshop, communicating engineering on screen or speaking on stage, Ruth brings technical ideas to life with clarity, energy and curiosity.

What invention teaches us

Book Ruth Amos for your event and audiences gain a revealing look at what actually happens between the excitement of a new idea and the moment it finally works.

Her talks challenge the assumption that innovation comes from a sudden flash of genius. Instead, Ruth shows how progress emerges through curiosity, experimentation, persistence and repeated attempts to improve an idea.

Drawing on her own experience, she explores themes including:

• Creativity and finding new approaches to familiar problems
• Resilience when ideas or prototypes fail
• Collaboration and the value of different perspectives
• Experimentation as a route to better solutions
• Intelligent risk-taking and becoming comfortable with uncertainty
• Learning from setbacks rather than hiding them

Ruth's stories show that failure can provide valuable information. A prototype that breaks, an idea that behaves unexpectedly or a solution that needs to be redesigned can all become part of the route towards something better.

Creativity that feels achievable

Ruth Amos brings an engaging and accessible perspective to subjects that can sometimes feel abstract. Rather than discussing innovation purely as a business concept, she draws on real experiences of building, testing, failing and trying again.

Her workshop stories offer both humour and practical insight, allowing audiences to see the messy reality behind successful ideas. She demonstrates that creativity is something people can practise and that innovative thinking becomes stronger when people are prepared to experiment.

This makes Ruth's talks relevant to organisations and audiences interested in creativity, innovation, engineering, collaboration, resilience and problem-solving. Her experiences provide a memorable framework for thinking differently about challenges and recognising opportunities within them.

Book Ruth Amos for your event

As a keynote or after-dinner speaker, Ruth Amos combines remarkable stories from the world of invention with humour, honesty and practical lessons audiences can apply to their own work and thinking.

From creating StairSteady as a teenager to bringing more than 100 children's inventions to life, Ruth has experienced the full process of turning ideas into reality. She knows the excitement of a promising concept, the frustration of something going wrong and the satisfaction of discovering a solution through persistence.

Her talks encourage audiences to think more creatively, take intelligent risks and become more comfortable with experimentation. Above all, Ruth demonstrates that innovation does not require every idea to work immediately. It requires curiosity, collaboration and a willingness to keep learning from each attempt.

Book Ruth Amos for your event to give audiences an entertaining, practical and inspiring perspective on creativity, resilience and the real process of making ideas happen.