About Defproc – Read our origin story and meet the team

Our Origin Story

How we started and the journey to where we are today

Since 2010 we’ve been creating, solving problems, tackling big issues and generally having fun out of our laboratory in Liverpool. Our dedicated team of thinkers and designers have had the joy of working on a huge variety of projects, during every stage of development. From prototyping, building and testing our very first project, The Atomic Duck, to tackling big social issues and helping elderly people open up and talk, we’ve been able to create change in the world in both big and small ways. From the whimsical to the necessary, our team has helped to deliver ideas and bring them to life for many prestigious brands and causes. Meet the people behind the method and the madness futher below.

The Timeline

Take a look at the steps DefProc made

2010 - The Origin

The business humbly began in a spare room with no equipment, no investment and an employee count of one.

2010 - Atomic Duck

Our first substantial project involved creating a human powered vehicle that could be purchased as a ‘build it yourself’ kit and assembled with basic tools by the customer. At its conclusion, Atomic Duck ended as a successful failure. When it came to produce the first prototype we found very quickly that manufacturing businesses did not want to make a small run of custom parts so our mission then became to fill that gap and provide that service that we needed, to others.

2012 - DoES Liverpool

As we grew and developed, the time came to move into a more appropiate space. DoES offered a workshop and co-working area suitable for us to set up our prototyping business. During our time there we continued to produce prototypes and work collaboratively on projects, as we improved our stature as an engineering company.

2013 - BBC Perceptive Radio R&D

One of our larger ealier projects involved working with the BBC R&D on the creation of a Perceptive Radio.

2014 - FACT

We’ve had the luxury of working with FACT on several occasions starting in 2014, from making a Minecraft Real to bring Minecraft to life to a Minimum Wage Machine art installation.

2014 - Environment Agency

Our working relationship with the Environment Agency began in 2014 as we developed bespoke river level sensors and software. This provided further oppertunities including developing national training courses for microcontrollers to current work on NB-IoT R&D.

2015 - Push to Talk

Push to Talk was one of our biggest projects from 2015, which continues in development today, and was shorlisted for the Driving Digital Challenge award.

2016 - Made Invaders

A personal showcase of bringing a classic arcade shooter to life, Made Invaders debuted at Maker Faire Newcastle and continues to make appearances today.

2017 - The Things Network

We initiated the beginings of The Things Network in Liverpool, which provided a foundation for using LoRaWAN and acting as one of the industry leaders in the technology.

2018 - Move to Sensor City

As we continued to grow, develop, increase our staff size and take on more/larger projects, it was time for DefProc to move to a more substantial environment; Sensor City became our new home.

2018 - Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care Testbed

Working as a consortium partner we delivered the worlds first LoRaWAN and 5G 66mm wave network. As part of this we continued to develop Push to Talk as a service to counteract social isolation, taking advantage of the LoRaWAN network.

2019 - National Science and Media Museum

The start of many exhibitions for the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, from space sound interactions to 4D movie experiences.

2020 - The Rebrand

To mark the 10th year anniversary of DefProc, going from a single person in a spare room to close-knit team of professionals in Sensor City, DefProc relaunches with new branding and a new website. One thing that hasn’t changed over the decade though is the same dedication and drive for the work we do.