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 The Red Dot Design Award is an international, annual design competition for product and industrial design, brand and communication design as well as design concepts, in which the Red Dot quality label is awarded to winners. The Red Dot Design A ...

Award in 2016. He has appeared on the

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

show Big Life Fix.

Early life and education

Muhammad was born in

Sidcup Sidcup is an area of south-east London, England, primarily in the London Borough of Bexley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, bordering the London Boroughs of London Borough of Bromley, Bromley and Royal Borough of Greenwich, Greenwich. It was ...

. He studied Mechanical Design, Materials and Manufacture at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

, earning a Masters in 2006. He completed the Industrial Design Engineering Masters at the Royal College of Art and

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

in 2008. In his second year he won £25,000 from the New Business Challenge to develop a fire extinguishing system.

Career

Plumis was established whilst Muhammad was the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

. Working with Paul Thomas and Jeung Woo Choi, he designed a series of solutions to suppress fire. He joined the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, redesigning the modern ambulance. He won the transport award in Designs of the Year. In 2009 the Automist, a fire extinguishing system, won the James Dyson Award. Automist uses mist to control fires and can be more effective than sprinklers for chip pan fires. The Automist was selected as one of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

's Top 15 Inventions of the last decade. He appeared on the

show ''You Too Can Be an Absolute Genius''’. Automist went on to win Innovation of the Year. He went on to design the Automist Smartscan, which won the 2016

and a Silver award from the

Industrial Designers Society of America The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) is a membership-based not-for-profit organization that promotes the practice and education of industrial design. The organization was formally established in 1965 by the collaborative merger of t ...

. He is a popular public speaking, discussing design and fire safety.

Big Life Fix

Muhammad has appeared on the

show Big Life Fix. In Series one he made a boy with

Möbius syndrome Möbius syndrome or Moebius syndrome is a rare congenital neurological disorder which is characterized by facial nerve paralysis, facial paralysis and the inability to move the eyes from side to side. Most people with Möbius syndrome are born wit ...

a bicycle that he could ride without needing his hands or feet. He also worked on a device to allow a 56-year-old man with locked-in syndrome communicate with his family. In Series Two he developed a snowboard that allowed a man with Post

Anoxic Anoxia means a total depletion in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts: * Anoxic waters, sea water, fresh water or groundwater that are depleted of dissolved ox ...

Myoclonus Myoclonus is a brief, involuntary, irregular (lacking rhythm) twitching of a muscle, a joint, or a group of muscles, different from clonus, which is rhythmic or regular. Myoclonus ( myo- "muscle", clonus "spasm") describes a medical sign and, ...

to snowboard. Muhammad enjoys playing basketball.

Awards

2009 James Dyson Award for the ''Automist'' fire extinguisher 2012

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London, England, exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all fund ...

's Designs of the Year for the ''Redesign for the Emergency Ambulance'' 2016

for the ''Automist'' fire extinguisher{{Cite news, url=https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/171615/automist-wins-red-dot-best-best/, title=Automist wins Red Dot - Best of the Best {{! Imperial News {{! Imperial College London, work=Imperial News, access-date=2018-08-01, language=en-GB

References

English inventors British inventors Alumni of Imperial College London