Ms. Maria Jimenez-Otero is in the second year of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between the University of Central England's Technology & Innovation Centre and Deaf Alerter plc. She recently won second place in a Technology Transfer & Innovation competition open to students to design a poster illustrating their work/main project within their placement company.

Ms. Jimenez-Otero won £200, which she decided to donate to a local Deaf charity. For its notable work she selected Derby Deaf Children's Society (DDCS), a voluntary, local registered association of the National Deaf Children's Society. The cheque was presented to Monica Heath of DDCS.

Mrs. Heath said: "Derby Deaf Children's Society is a voluntary organisation and survives on donations such as these: £200 will enable 20 deaf children to go on an activity such as bowling, or a Christmas outing."

The Technology Transfer & Innovation (TTI) Conference was held in the last week of June 2004 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre: the shortlisted KTP entrants in the competition had their posters displayed during the event. Ms. Jimenez-Otero is currently 75% of the way through the KTP and has helped to develop a range of software and hardware solutions in addition to the core task of developing a new transmitter, which has just entered production.