3 minute readFrom the things-happen-for-a-reason-in-building-as-in-life vault comes the story of Derek Cowburn. For the foreseeable future, the inventor, engineer, and serial entrepreneur will be apt to schedule his Zoom meetings to account for the fact that he’s quarantining indefinitely in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
Cowburn and his 11-year-old home electric systems and construction job site lighting equipment company LumenCache is unique in that it does not require one specific standard for protocol or voltage, instead each wire can have it’s own standard and the backplane maintains compatibility between vendors and even versions over time. It’s truly future-proof and made for interoperability – two of the largest complaints of builders with smart home systems. It doesn’t suffer the reliability, coverage, and security issues of wireless. It’s also simple as a light switch, fast to install, and requires no special software (or even a laptop or phone) to install. And it’s at parity with the cost of AC lighting, so you get all the benefits for roughly the same cost.” For homebuyer residents, LumenCache low voltage DC lighting solution helps them integrate with their energy management and controls to achieve their low-consumption goals without sacrificing the bright and inviting lighting plan they want these days as part of health-and-wellness trends. Still, builders face the decision – to stay in their comfort zone of AC currency, or to switch. PwC’s report notes: The rise of DC will have an impact across many parts of a business, including research and development, supply chain management, and product development. Indeed, it will fundamentally affect the growth strategy of many companies. As Edison’s vision for electricity transmission makes a decisive comeback, business leaders will need to factor this profound shift in power technology into their thinking. An inflection point may come sooner or later, but it’s probably a matter of when not if it will happen. Cowburn’s personal-professional version of “things-happen-for-a-reason” comes down to the fact that being stationed in Shenzhen during the entirety of COVID-19 has accorded him an on-the-ground opportunity to secure an 11-factory partnership infrastructure and a thickly robust supply chain that can allow Lumen Cache to stand out as a solution where chokeholds are cropping up as critical path impediments to progressing each home to completion. We were perfectly on time to do what we’re doing, only it started seven years too early for adoption,” says Cowburn. “In China, there’s a proverb and I’ve been using it to describe what it feels like as the moment becomes ripe, ‘all we are waiting for are the winds from the east … ‘ And, now, we’re feeling those winds. And we’re on Shinzhen time, which is 13 hours ahead of the eastern time zone. So, it feels like a transitional moment for this company. We’re the future.” So, Derek Cowburn and Lumen Cache may not yet be household names, but if you heed what Rocky Mountain Institute co-founder and chief scientist Amory B. Lovins attests to in his recommendation of Cowburn to Chinese officials for a talent grant: Mr. Cowburn’s innovations … extend … to highly efficient and advantageous systems for other kinds of power, control, and integration, bringing many previously disparate devices into the Internet of Things in a uniquely cost-effective, flexible, and secure way … It is brilliantly simple, and therefor highly regarded by experts in industry and government abroad…. … Please don’t be concerned that Mr. Cowburn lacks a doctorate. So do I …”Join the conversation
