Heat exhaustion
Ḥajj 2024 reached 51.8 °C and over 1,300 pilgrims died of heat. Core temperature rises long before a person feels unwell, which is exactly why sensing beats self-reporting.
Safety
The journey of a lifetime should not be the last.
Every year 1.8 million people perform Ḥajj and another 19 million perform ʿUmrah. Many are elderly, many have never travelled before, and too many do not come home. Between 2006 and 2015 alone, 15,661 pilgrims lost their lives — the vast majority of them preventably.
1,300+
Heat deaths during Ḥajj 2024
Saudi authorities
2,411
Deaths in the 2015 Minā crush
AP / NIH
20,000
Pilgrims separated from groups each year
Ḥajj safety reports
83%
Of 2024 heat victims were unregistered
Saudi Ministry
Risk
Six failure modes, repeated every season
None of these are mysteries. They are known, measurable and — with sensing, aggregation and early warning — largely avoidable.
Crowd density
The 2015 Minā crush killed 2,411 people. Density spikes are visible in aggregate minutes before they become lethal, if anyone is watching the aggregate.
Separation
Around 20,000 pilgrims are separated from their groups each season. Most are elderly, many carry no working phone, and each search costs an agency $50,000 to $200,000.
Delayed response
In 2024, 83% of heat victims were unregistered — no operator, no phone, nobody looking for them. Response time, not medicine, is the variable that decides outcomes.
Network collapse
Cellular capacity around the Ḥaram saturates at peak. Any safety system that assumes a signal is a safety system that fails when it is needed.
Chronic illness
A large share of pilgrims are elderly with cardiac, renal or diabetic conditions, travelling far from their medical records and their usual medication routine.
Response
What we do about each of them
Prevention is cheaper than search, and early warning is cheaper than prevention.
| Failure mode | Yahaji's answer |
|---|---|
| Heat exhaustion | On-device prediction from temperature, heart rate, exertion and weather — a haptic warning 12–18 minutes before symptoms. |
| Crowd density | Aggregate density mapping refreshed every five minutes, with automatic escalation to civil defence on a spike. |
| Separation | Mesh-network triangulation to within five metres, with one-click search from the operator or agency console. |
| Delayed response | SOS and fall detection that reach family, operator and emergency services simultaneously, with location and vitals attached. |
| Network collapse | Every safety-critical function runs offline; the mesh carries the packet until something reaches the internet. |
| Chronic illness | Medication reminders, a health baseline captured before departure, and consented medical notes visible to the medic on duty. |
Privacy & compliance
Protection that does not become surveillance
A safety platform holds the most sensitive data a person has: where they are, how their heart is behaving, and how they worship. That obliges us.
Encryption end to end
Health and location data are encrypted on the device and in transit, and decrypted only for named recipients.
Saudi PDPL & GDPR
Purpose limitation, consent records, subject access and deletion honoured in both regimes.
Data residency
A Saudi residency option for delegations whose regulator requires it.
Role-based access
Medic, group leader, operator admin, agency and authority each see a different, logged view.
Aggregates by default
Higher tiers see counts. Opening an individual record is a reason-coded, audited action.
Seasonal expiry
Telemetry expires when the season closes; the pilgrim's own record stays with the pilgrim.
Act on it
Bring early warning to your delegation.
Whether you send ninety pilgrims or ninety thousand, the same prevention model applies — and the pilot fits inside one season.