S. Africa social entrepreneurs to solve fire problems with new detector

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South Africa’s crowded slums will from now not have to deal with problems arising from fires and floods on account of social entrepreneurs who have unveiled a fire detector that will give warning after sensing heat instead of the conventional smoke.

The Duya News

IMG:Innovationpop.com
IMG:Innovationpop.com

reports that the app which is christened Lumkani which means “be aware” in the Xhosa language, will set off once the rise in temperature is higher than usual.

“Shack environments tend to be fairly smokey because of a lack of electrification,” Lumkani s co-designer, University of Cape Town engineering lecturer Samuel Ginsberg, said.

“Shack dwellers often use fire inside their shacks for cooking. So a normal smoke detector, which is what you would use in your home, is not effective — it would false trigger far too often.”

Only last year but one, a series of fires left around 4000 homeless people in the Cape Town townships of Khayelitsha and Thembeni, leaving around 4,000 homeless in just two days.

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