Two years ago, when tiny aluminium scooters first appeared, it was easy to assume that they were the latest fad from Tokyo - faceless, futuristic and anonymous. Discovering that they were actually the brainchild of Wim Ouboter, a 42-year-old former Swiss banker, confounds expectations. For not only is Wim a self-confessed big kid who bowed out of the world of Swiss banking because it was boring, but the micro scooter is steeped in Ouboter family history.
'My sister had a problem with her leg which meant it was 25cm shorter than the other one,' he says. 'When we were kids, she couldn't ride a bicycle or go skiing, but she was excellent at riding a scooter so my parents really pushed us to use scooters. We got a new one almost every year. They would drive us up to the top of a hill and we would ride down.'
Twenty years later, when Wim was 30 years old and living in Zurich, he came across a problem. His favourite sausage shop was too far away to walk, yet not far away enough to take the car out of the garage. 'I called it a microdistance,' he says. 'I made a primitive scooter using the wheels of some inline skates and it worked. The only problem was that when I went down town on it, people laughed at me.' With his characteristic mixture of a kid's desire to be cool and a grown-up's application of technology, Wim worked at the scooter until it was small enough to hide in his backpack. It still took another 10 years (and the constant encouragement of his wife) to get the invention on the road. Now, 2m micro scooters later, they are still an important part of Ouboter family life. Not only does Wim's sister tell him she's glad that his business came out of her disability, but when asked if his two young children use his scooters, he says, 'Of course. Who do you think are my guinea pigs?'