Rodrigo García González

Rodrigo García González was educated as an architect in Spain, India and Chile before he turned into a product designer, or better, an inventor. As a student in the Innovation Design Engineering program at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London he invented an invisible mop that, when needed, unfolds its handle and saves a surface bigger than Hyde Park in storage space for London alone.

Or take his concept for ‘Hop!’, possibly the new standard for suitcases. Hop! follows its owner like a dog that doesn’t part from his boss wherever he goes. Just imagine all travellers passing through an airport being followed at little distance by their trunks.

More recently, García González, together with his former fellow students in London, Guillaume Couche and Pierre Paslier, worked out a project with potentially even further reaching consequences for our lives. The edible water packaging ‘Ooho!’ may be the solution for one of the most pressing issues of our times: plastic waste pollution. García González, Couche and Paslier founded their innovation lab, Skipping Rocks Lab, to further develop the project. For this, the lab was awarded the Climate KIC grant when it joined the Climate KIC start-up acceleration program. In the meantime, Ooho! has won the Lexus Design Award in 2014.

Previously, García González also worked as an improvisation actor. In 2009, he was awarded with the Gold Medal in the II Improvisation World Championship in Santiago de Chile. In London, he now combines his work in Skipping Rocks Lab with tutoring at Kingston University, Royal College of Art and Imperial College London.