Welcome to the eighth edition of our newsletter, as we start to see our product adopted around the world and join an international coalition. This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products.
The World Bank Group announcement this week of $1 billion to de-risk clean air project is hugely welcome. This recognises the 6% cost of the global economy as a result of poor air quality, not to mention the impact on individuals. Countries have made strides in reducing exhaust emissions from vehicles in recent years. However, these gains are increasingly offset by non-exhaust emissions such as tyre wear, road wear, and resuspension from heavier electric vehicles (for a deeper dive, check out Will’s co-authored critical review, which has been recognised in the prestigious ES&T journal’s Best Paper Awards). The dynamics of air pollution are complex - and Air Aware Labs is here to help everyone understand how it affects them and how to reduce exposure. Please join us on this mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.
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Hot off the press
- our integration with Strava is going even better than we'd anticipated! We already have 295 users, loads of engagement and have seen 2000 activities posted from four continents. See some of our learnings here. We are itching to get the next feature upgrade out as soon as possible, so stay tuned!
- we have been invited to join the international Every Breath Counts Coalition. This includes over 100 organisations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GSK and UNICEF - all committed to tackling respiratory illness. We can't wait to work with this amazing group
- we have been working hard behind the scenes on our first design pilot and continue to investigate options for integrating our technology into platforms that support sportspeople, families, employees, commuters and people with respiratory conditions.
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Go with us towards clean air
- please tell everyone you know about our Strava integration and the club! We're loving seeing the engagement with the data and what it means for people's activities and health impacts
- we're working on pricing models and IP strategies - getting loads of support but please reach out if you can help further. We are also looking for any short term support to design and market our next product roll out - if you know anyone enthusiastic for the cause and with these skills, please let us know!
- we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to Joseph Nwosu Tom Maverley Abeed Janmohamed Ben Brabyn Avrilia Diamanti Pete Wilkes Leith Greenslade Geoffrey Lloyd Ruaraidh Dobson Noelle Morgan ACC, CPC, ELI-MP Charlotte Day Jason Bootle Kate Barnard - 'Data Diva' Pete Waddingham Gaye "Gaia" Soykok Viola Jardon Helen Buchan Amanda Vine James Allgrove Moira Nicolson Ravi Nar Steve Dunlop Heather Davies Gwen Hines Aoife Kirk Ashlie Jineth Tapias Silva Jack Richmond Simon Birkett Lucy Anderson Danny Hope Francesca Brady 🌬️ Tanya Aldred Phoebe Greenwold Amandine Alexandre ! We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.
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Meet the advisers
Our wonderful advisers are also providing huge help to us. This week we are meeting David Janner-Klausner (he/him), our commercial adviser. David is a long-time entrepreneur in public policy, sustainability and service delivery. In the past decade he has been Co-founder of Commonplace, which has grown to be the UK’s leading online public engagement platform for the built environment. David helped steer Commonplace from an idea to over 8 million unique visitors to some 2,500 engagement websites so far, and to its B-Corp certification. He has a PhD in geography and economics and a Masters in sustainable architecture. He has worked directly (though separately) on air quality and on health policies and brings his policy and commercial experience plus unique knowledge of public engagement to Air Aware Labs.
David says: I am hugely excited for what Air Aware Labs is set to achieve. Providing people with information on air quality will enable them to stay further from harm‘s way at least some of the time, which is so important. But furthermore, I hope that as people become aware of air quality around them they will be more supportive of policies designed to improve local air quality. In cities, the health aspect of our mobility patterns needs to be closer to the fore and bringing information to the palms of people's hands is a step towards this.
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Get in touch
Please follow Air Aware Labs to stay in touch with our progress. If anything in this newsletter has piqued your interest, please send me (Louise Thomas) or William Hicks a message!
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More newsletters
Although the Venture Builder has finished, we will never forget our fellow ZINC teams. Please read and subscribe to newsletters of others in cohort 7:
- Pavandeep Rai here
- Marjo Palanee here
- Donna Egan here
- Josh Piddock here
- Guy Naor here
- Veronika Bridgman here
- Lisa Rickers here
- Natalia Baltazar here
