In 2018 I observed was that even though all of the apps and websites I could use were telling me that the air quality in my neighbourhood was top-notch, I could smell the smoke of the newly installed wood-burners down the street.
That sent me on a voyage of discovery that highlighted a major weakness in our understanding of air quality. Our best knowledge today comes from models and interpretations of high quality data derived from a relatively low number of locations. These models simply don’t know that Jennie at number 48 sparks up her wood-burner in the evenings, or that Pete is a mechanic specialising in restoring classic cars, often belching out black sooty smoke from old broken engines.
So I prototyped something I described as a hyper-local air quality measurement device to measure the air we actually breathe. I didn’t have the resources to take my prototype further, but I now work with companies that have.
You can find out more about my project here wellthatsinteresting.tech/what-affects-air-quality/
The push back I have often heard is “So what? If I know the air is bad in a particular outdoor place, what can I do about it?”
The only answer I have had so far is to either avoid it, delay your journey or wear a respirator.
Now, this startup, Praan, from India seems to have a very interesting idea for providing hyper-local air cleaning devices that are even net-positive.
Praan just raised an undisclosed sum of money as an extension to the $1.56 million raised in January to help stabilise their supply chain, expand the team and ramp up production.
Good luck to you Praan.
#airquality #aqi #airpollution
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