Howard Carter (businessman)

Howard Carter is a British businessman and founder of Incognito. He is an expert in the field of insects and specifically as an insect bite prevention expert. After contracting two life-threatening diseases from mosquito bites, despite using high-percentage DEET-based repellent, he was motivated to invent a totally natural mosquito repellent. This was, in part, because statistics were suggesting more mosquitoes were becoming resistant to synthetic repellents that contained chemicals such as DTT and DEET.

Howard Carter
NationalityBritish
OccupationFounder & Managing Director
Employerincognito
Known forInsect bite prevention expert

Carter appeared on the UK show, Dragon's Den in 2009, in an attempt to raise capital for his startup. In more recent years, Carter has frequently appeared in the media, speaking about mosquitoes and the spread of disease on BBC News. He acted as an advisor to the British and Brazilian governments in the run-up to the 2016 Rio Olympics. He has also met the Queen, when in 2015 he accepted the Queen's Award for Sustainable Development on behalf of his company incognito®.[1]

Early career

Carter studied in biochemistry, before he began his career working in publishing. While traveling through India, Carter contracted malaria in a remote part of the country. Despite taking the necessary precautions, he was still bitten. In order to recover from the disease, he travelled over 1,000 miles to the nearest city, where he spent time in hospital. Shortly after the incident, he decided to spend some time in Thailand to recuperate from malaria, he again was bitten by mosquitoes. He again took the necessary precautions, wearing 50% DEET insect repellent, but the bites resulted in him contracting Dengue fever.[2]

Career

As a result of contracting two life-threatening diseases in the space of a year, Carter was motivated to change careers and he decided to go back into biochemistry which he had studied earlier on. After carrying out research into mosquitoes and bite avoidance, Carter founded incognito in 2007. The company was founded on the principle of a single product, an insect repellent spray.[2]

In 2009, Carter appeared on the English version of the TV show, Dragon's Den.[3][4] He turned down an offer from James Caan, who wanted a 40% stake in the business. He then went onto raise funds from elsewhere, which totalled £250,000 in 2011.[5]

One of the biggest focuses of the product was to create a chemical-free repellent. With the rise in global warming, Carter predicted that the demand for this type of product would grow dramatically over the next decade.[6]

Carter theorised in 2013 during an interview with the Huffington Post that the Anopheles albamanus mosquito for example had become partly resistant to DEET, DDT and other forms of pesticide used commonly in many high-street repellents.[7]

Carter's logic of using natural ingredients, predominantly from South East Asia, means that the repellant works against breeds of mosquitoes that are resistant to widely used pesticides.[7]

In 2016, Carter featured in The Independent to discuss the growing numbers of mosquitoes in the south of the United Kingdom during summer months.[8] He warned that areas such as Sussex were more commonly seeing mosquitoes during the summer, which could lead to a health pandemic in the future if these mosquitoes carried diseases such as malaria.[9] He stated that female mosquitoes tend to lay their eggs in wet grooves, meaning tyre tread on cars or vans from the continent are a suitable place for pregnant females to lay their eggs.[10][11]

Carter continued with his warnings on the spread of the Zika virus, mainly during the 2016 Rio Olympics.[12] He was an advisor to both the Brazilian government and British government regarding the safety of its athletes and citizens during the run-up to the event.[13] Later that year, clinical tests showed that incognito was 100% effective at stopping Zika-carrying mosquitoes from biting humans for five hours.[14]

In 2017, Howard Carter was recognized by The Guardian when a product he had developed as part of the incognito range – the dual action natural suncream insect repellent won a Janey Lee Grace Platinum Award. This was the 6th year running that incognito had won a Janey Lee Grace Platinum Award for its products.[15]

See also

References
  1. "incognito (Howad Ltd) «". Retrieved 2018-12-10.
  2. Shaw, Alan (April 27, 2016). "Man who has suffered two mosquito-borne viruses warns of Zika virus at Rio Olympics". The Sunday Post.
  3. "Dragons' Den exposure for businesses failing to ignite funding search". Growth Business magazine. July 2, 2013.
  4. Stokdyk, John (June 30, 2013). "Dragons' Den: 'No better than banks'". Accounting Web.
  5. Frost, Maisha (March 2, 2011). "A flying success". Daily Express.
  6. "Incognito: Howard and Patricia Carter". Startups magazine. June 12, 2008.
  7. Lee, Janey Grace (September 18, 2013). "Avoid the Insects - Go Incognito". Huffington Post.
  8. Henderson, Emma (January 28, 2016). "Zika virus could infect four million people in the Americas - and has 'explosive pandemic potential'". The Independent.
  9. Ryan, Siobhan (January 30, 2016). "Mosquito that can carry Zika virus spotted in Sussex". The Argus (Brighton).
  10. Massey, Nina (September 28, 2014). "UK weather: Britain's Indian summer has led to increase in repellent-resistant mosquitoes". Daily Mirror.
  11. Fletcher, Becky (January 28, 2016). "Is the Zika virus getting into Britain on Car Tyres?". Daily Express.
  12. Nsubuga, Jimmy (January 28, 2016). "Head-shrinking Zika virus mosquitoes are already in Britain, according to expert". The Metro.
  13. Bowater, Donna (February 11, 2016). "'Strongest link yet' found between Zika virus and birth defects in newborns". The Telegraph.
  14. "Incognito tested 100% effective as Zika carrying mosquitos show resistance to most high street repellent sprays". Imperfectly Natural. January 26, 2016.
  15. "The Sunscreen that Bites Back". The Guardian.
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