Lumkani Seeks To Help Informal Settlements With Fast Fire Detection
Lumkani Seeks To Help Informal Settlements With Fast Fire Detection. Lumkani is a technology company which distributes insurance products to financially excluded households and businesses in townships and informal settlements. It uses their award-winning fire detectors to mitigate the risk of fires and a world-first insurance product to cover losses when disasters occur.
Lumkani was initially a university project created by Francois Petousis, an electrical engineering student in the University of Cape Town. Petousis designed a smoke detector. The current Lumkani system utilises rate of temperature change, the original temperature detection system being designed by Samuel Ginsberg.
Lumkani’s mission is to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by slum fires in South Africa and across the globe. To accomplish this Lumkani has developed and distributed its networked early warning fire detection system to over 40,000 homes in informal settlements across South Arica. Along the way it has partnered with local NGOs; international aid organisations; and corporations to reach high fire risk households. This award-winning system has been successfully reducing the spread of fires for over four years, and has limited fires from spreading beyond the first home in 71% of cases.
Lumkani has taken the next step in further providing security against fire and building a sustainable business model, by partnering with Hollard Insurance. Together they provide household insurance against fire to informal homes. Lumkani has agent networks which distribute both the fire detection and fire insurance products in some of the highest fire risk areas of South Africa. Its business addresses the challenge of shack fires – which trap people in cycles of poverty – using innovative IoT that allows for financial inclusion in the form of insurance. These factors together are a formidable force for lasting & sustainable change.
Lumkani is a technology company which distributes insurance products to financially excluded households and businesses in townships and informal settlements. It has distributed tens of thousands of fire alarms to homes across South Africa which has drastically lowered the instances of fires in its communities, ensuring that those who are most vulnerable have a sense of security. Tens of millions of Rands of possible fire damage have been saved through its early-warning fire detectors.
