AN inventor who was turned down for funding by the panel on TV’s Dragon’s Den is forging ahead with plans to launch his product.

Dr Kin Kam is still convinced his iicap is a winner.

What is it? It is a sports cap which allows you to secure your spectacles or sunglasses below the peak. It takes the weight of your glasses and compresses it.

So if you are playing tennis, badminton or golf you’ll be able to keep a steady eye on the ball; or if you’re a sweaty-nosed gardener this summer you can lean over the trowel without your specs falling into fertilizer.

Hong Kong-born Dr Kam, of Blakeney Place, York, was one of six entrepreneurs pitching their sporting innovations to those hard-nosed Dragon’s Den investors on BBC2 in the run-up to The Sport Relief Weekend starting today.

Helping him to make his pitch for the stabilizing attachment for sports caps in this special edition was comedian Jason Manford, but even he failed to bring a smile to the Dragons, Theo Paphitis, James Caan, Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne Afterwards Dr Kam said: “The panel just didn’t get it. The cap is deliberately made to be subtle with an embedded loop fabric underneath which allows me to put the support system anywhere around the rim so that one size fits all.”

And if the Dragons did not appreciate its functionality, there are a number of people in York who do.

They were visitors to Venturefest at York Racecourse who snapped up his iicaps at £16 each.

Dr Kam said: “The Dragons simply did not see it as a good marketing exercise. I’ve taken that on board and I am now in negotiation with a major sporting company in Lancashire to make it sexier – still functional, but with logos on the side of the support system so that it becomes brandable.”

This is the second time Kin, 42, has appeared before the Dragons.

Back in the very first series in 2005, he demonstrated to them his Smartcard concept – a mock up of an idea which bleeped a warning of an impending hospital appointment.

A version of the electronic device, a time-programmable ProActiveCard which he reckoned could save the NHS about £250 million a year in missed appointments, is now being trialed in collaboration with CUHTEC, the Centre for Usable Home Technology, a collaboration between the University of York and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

“Dr Kam said: “It was used at the North Welsh Trust hospital and the results are being compared with other reminder systems.

“I understand that it has good potential.”