Yusuf Muhammad

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 the Royal College of Art and 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]

2016 Red Dot for the Automist fire extinguisher^[26][27]