SA’s fire detection startup Lumkani named finalist in Index Awards 2015

Lumkani, the South African startup behind the innovative fire detecting device, is a finalist in the globally renowned design competition Index: Award 2015.

Lumkani and the other finalists had to meet vigorous criteria to be chosen as finalists. The most important being their strength and creativity in improving people’s lives, as well as their overall rank across the INDEX: Award criteria of form, impact, context.

Ranging from body, home, work and play, other finalists include Foldscope by Stanford engineers Manu Prakash and Jim Cybulski, language and text translation platform Duolingo, the Ambulance Drone by Dutch designer Alec Momont, the Google Self-Driving Car and including Elon Musk’s Tesla Powerwall.

Earlier this year, we wrote about Lumkani’s mission to curb fires in townships. A lot has happened since then, the startup has gone on to win awards, and is running a crowdfunding campaign to boost expansion.

When Ventureburn spoke to the startup earlier this year, Emily Vining explained the problem that the startup is trying to solve:

Shack fire is a global challenge and the spread of fire causes a wake of destruction for sometimes thousands of people in one instance. For people who do not have socio-economic safety nets losing everything is very difficult, if not impossible, to fully recover from not mention the mental, physical and emotional damage inflicted.

Vining tells Ventureburn that the Lumkani team is very humbled to be a finalist in the Index Award 2015. “We are inspired by our co-finalists and it is a great honour to represent the continent alongside Kenya’s BRCK and OKHI, who are developing locally grown products and solutions for some of the challenges parts of our continent face.”

Five winners will be chosen on 27 August who will split the grand prize of €500 000.