Yusuf Muhammad is a British inventor and engineer. He is the founding director of Plumis, a start-up which develops innovative systems to protect people from fires. He won the Red Dot Award in 2016. He has appeared on the BBC Two show Big Life Fix.
Yusuf Muhammad | |
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Alma mater | Royal College of Art University of Nottingham |
Awards | Red Dot 2016 James Dyson Award 2009 |
Website | yusufm.com |
Muhammad was born in Sidcup.[1] He studied Mechanical Design, Materials and Manufacture at the University of Nottingham, earning a Masters in 2006.[2] He completed the Industrial Design Engineering Masters at Imperial College London in 2008.[3] In his second year he won £25,000 from the New Business Challenge to develop a fire extinguishing system.[4]
Plumis was established whilst Muhammad was the Royal College of Art.[5] Working with Paul Thomas and Jeung Woo Choi, he designed a series of solutions to suppress fire.[6][7] He joined the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, redesigning the modern ambulance.[8] He won the transport award in Designs of the Year.[9]
In 2009 the Automist, a fire extinguishing system, won the James Dyson Award.[10] Automist uses mist to control fires and can be more effective than sprinklers for chip pan fires.[10] The Automist was selected as one of the British Library's Top 15 Inventions of the last decade.[11] He appeared on the BBC Two show You Too Can Be an Absolute Genius’.[12] Automist went on to win Innovation of the Year.[13] He went on to design the Automist Smartscan, which won the 2016 Red Dot and a Silver award from the Industrial Designers Society of America.[14] He is a popular public speaking, discussing design and fire safety.[15][16]
Muhammad has appeared on the BBC Two show Big Life Fix.[1][17][18] In Series one he made a boy with Möbius syndrome a bicycle that he could ride without needing his hands or feet.[19] He also worked on a device to allow a 56-year-old man with locked-in syndrome communicate with his family.[20] In Series Two he developed a snowboard that allowed a man with Post Anoxic Myoclonus to snowboard.[21]
Muhammad enjoys playing basketball.[22]
2009 James Dyson Award for the Automist fire extinguisher[23][24]
2012 Design Museum's Designs of the Year for the Redesign for the Emergency Ambulance[25]