Queen’s graduate designs award-winning disaster solution  

A Queen's alumna - Fiona Bennington - is behind an award-winning device which could bring hope to millions of people in disaster areas around the world.

Fiona grew up near Kesh, Co Fermanagh and attended Enniskillen Collegiate Grammar School before studying Product Design and Development at Queen’s. Her family has an engineering background - her father, Gordon McCrea, is an electronic engineer and runs the family business, Kesh Electrics. Her mother, Ann McCrea, is a breast feeding coordinator based in Irvinestown.

The Social Innovation Award was granted for the innovative design of Fastap - a compact and lightweight emergency water distribution system which can be set up by anyone in under a minute. It provides Aid Agencies with a more efficient and cost effective solution and, more importantly, with a rapid and hygienic means of distributing life-saving drinking water to disaster affected communities.

The heart of the system, produced by Fast Engineering Ltd in Antrim, is a new design of tap stand based on a tripod concept which is assembled and factory tested before despatch. Currently tap stands are delivered as plumbing kits which require assembly on site, which is time-consuming and requires technical skill plus tools. The end result is often the leaking of valuable drinking water. FASTAP is currently deployed in several locations in East Africa by both local and multinational aid agencies.

Speaking at the Awards presentation evening in the Titanic Building in Belfast at the end of March, Fiona said: “It’s a great honour for us to receive an award like this that recognises the innovative work we have done. However, our work is not finished; we are determined to spread the message about FASTAP to help save more lives.”

Pictured with Fiona are Colin Ryan of Accenture (left) and Seamus Connolly from Fast Engineering Ltd            

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