EG Awards 2020- Winner

 

We are absolutely delighted to have won the EG Tech Awards Wellbeing Technology of the Year 2020, and even more so with the judging panel’s comments:

“The judges gave the winner high praise for their engagement with partners to deliver data-led decision-making capabilities. With a strong submission and an even stronger product showing a comprehensive solution to both indoor and outdoor monitoring, the accolade was unanimous for the panel.”

We believe that today, more than ever, it’s vital to have a healthy home and work environment.  Along with the exacerbating effects on Covid-19, researchers recognise ever more clearly the overall detrimental impact of air quality on our health. Recently, the EU announced that one in eight premature deaths worldwide is attributable to pollution. Of that figure, a massive two-thirds are related to air pollution.

With AirSensa’s real-time monitoring capabilities, both internally and externally, you can understand accurately what is happening in your living and working environment, 24×7.  Businesses, real estate operators, and homeowners can all – for the first time – access an accurate picture of the air health of their properties.

A huge thank you goes to the whole AirSensa team in the UK and India. They have continued working at full pace on the exciting upcoming developments in our technology and products even through these unprecedented times.

For more information on the awards go to https://www.egi.co.uk/tech-awards/

For more information on AirSensa’s Corporate Air Monitoring Products: https://airsensa.com/the-solution/corporate/

To keep in touch with AirSensa and our upcoming product announcements, follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/airsensa

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Mark Carney on addressing climate change systemically

Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England and now UN Special Envoy for Climate Change, said in an interview today on Radio 4 that there is an acceleration in recent months in the business world around a rethink of what society wants for the future.

He described how central banks and the financial sector in general are addressing the threats to – and opportunities for – the economy from addressing climate change, and illustrated how this issue has moved to the mainstream for financial investors.  The move to sustainability and greater efficiency is not niche, it’s about the whole economy today.

The key questions are: What’s the plan? Where is the investment going? Where are the technology opportunities in this transition? 

We were delighted to hear this being called out; AirSensa’s solution is exactly what Mark Carney is saying is needed.  We can help legislators and banks understand what and where the huge underlying risks are; and we can help businesses to better track polluting emissions and their risk exposure, while planning for a better future.

For more information www.airsensa.com

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AirSensa announced as a finalist in the EG Tech Awards

The EG Tech Awards today announced the finalists in the 2020 edition of the awards, and AirSensa is delighted to be a finalist in the ‘Wellbeing Technology’ category.  

The EG Tech Awards ‘champion the tech and real estate stars, innovators and adopters who are embracing digital transformation as the sector is propelled head first into a far more reactive, agile future.’

Our award nomination covered the combination of internal and external monitoring for real estate owners and occupiers, and the advantages of aggregating and validating all such data on our STORRM platform, and recognised the key customer benefits available from AirSensa’ solution:

  • Helping protect share price against adverse events
  • Supporting capital raising in a more ESG-focused environment
  • Reducing liability to/for insurers
  • Fostering a happier workforce and local community relations

For more information on AirSensa’s unique technologies and how the value they can bring to commercial customers, please email [email protected]

EG Tech Awards: https://www.egi.co.uk/tech-awards/

 

About AirSensa monitoring for commercial real estate

External monitoring: AirSensa builds a sensor network across and around a customer site(s) to monitor emissions in real time, to protect both the customer’s interests and their employees’ wellbeing. 

Internal monitoring: AirSensa internal monitoring is installed throughout an organisation’s building(s), monitoring for key pollutants affecting employee health and productivity. Designed to meet WELL and RESET standards.

Outputs

  • Online dashboards
  • Analytics reports to formats agreed with the customer
  • APIs to other systems (eg Building Management) 
  • Real-time text alerts to designated contact number(s) 
  • Raw data (CSV) for third party analytics

Benefits

  1. Augments a company’s ESG reporting with detailed and comprehensive scope one data;
  2. Ensures that unintentional polluting episodes are identified immediately for swift corrective
    action;
  3. Reassures employees that they are being protected;
  4. Inputs to operational process analysis to identify available efficiencies and reductions in overall emissions;
  5. Helps to protect against legal liabilities by properly protecting employees and local residents and providing continuous evidence of polluting emissions (or lack thereof).
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AirSensa doubling internal air quality pilot projects

The Covid pandemic has engendered a renewed focus on individual health; while we’ve all been in lockdown, this has applied particularly to the impact of air pollution inside our homes; it will also apply in our workplaces as we start to return to work.  

In response, the AirSensa team is addressing the issue by accelerating our program of development on internal air quality solutions with partners for commercial offices, schools, medical facilities, social housing, and even home monitoring.

We’re in the process of doubling the number of internal monitoring pilots we’re running in this space, and will be demonstrating how our platform STORRM can already meet the most demanding requirements – processing data from any number of sensors across multiple properties anywhere around the globe – and reporting in real time.

We’ll be announcing details of individual pilots in the coming weeks, but please get in touch directly if you’d like to know more at [email protected]

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Public Health England fails to take air pollution into account in Covid-19 death analysis among ethnic minorities

Scientists call for apps to monitor symptoms and cross-relate to air pollution data – exactly what AirSensa’s new Covid-19 recovered patient app is designed for

Public Health England (PHE) published a report today confirming the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people from ethnic minorities, but failed to mention air pollution as a factor.  

As noted in my post from April 11th, there is a growing body of research linking air pollution to both transmission and fatality rate of the virus.  

Among the people criticising the PHE report today are:

 – Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, whose daughter Ella died in 2013 from a severe asthma attack that medical experts have now linked to spikes in air pollution, who said “Some people will say air pollution in itself is racism because, yet again, it disproportionately affects black people – Covid-19 has just made it more obvious.”

 – Geraint Davies, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution, who said: “It is wholly irresponsible for PHE not to correct for air pollution and occupation. The review should instead say [ethnic minorities] are put into harm’s way by living in more polluted areas and by being overrepresented amongst frontline workers”

 – Professor Francesca Dominici, of Harvard University, who said “We have a large body of evidence that health risks associated with air pollution exposure are higher among ethnic minorities.”, and

 – Issy Bray, a health statistics expert at the University of the West of England, who said: “…it is already clear that the relationship between ethnicity and risk of coronavirus is at least partially explained by a range of societal factors, and it is these inequalities that we should be tackling.”

Crucially, it is accepted that the influence of air pollution could be singled out if carefully analysed alongside other important factors such as population density, deprivation, occupation and obesity, ideally using data on individuals. 

Issy Bray said that smartphone apps that monitor symptoms could be useful by providing large amounts of personal and location data.

AirSensa’s Recovered Patient app is designed to do just that – monitor symptoms from those affected by the virus and cross-relate to the best air pollution data which, as we grow our city-scale hyperlocal networks, will get far more refined than data available today.

For more information on AirSensa’s Covid-19 app, or on hyperlocal air quality monitoring, please contact Jonathan Steel – [email protected]

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Modelling – better with supercomputers, better still with real data

An interesting discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, essentially noting that if it weren’t for the pandemic, we would all surely be talking about the weather. As Professor Liz Bentley (CEO of the Royal Meteorological Society) noted, the UK has had the wettest February since records began (in 1862), followed by the sunniest Spring since sunshine records began (1929).

Professor Tim Palmer, a climate physicist from the University of Oxford, said that attributing the recent extreme weather to climate change isn’t simple, as the climate is globally interconnected.

Two of the most interesting points from the discussion:

1. He noted that the weather wasn’t just odd in the UK; although the global average temperature increase was 0.63 degrees, some areas were much warmer than normal – up to 10 degrees higher in Siberia and Antarctica.

This illustrates one of the central drivers behind the AirSensa business – that the impacts of climate change (and pollution) are highly localised – you can’t understand how any place or activity will be affected by computing averages.

2. Professor Palmer also suggested that if $2bn were spent on supercomputing in a new centre for climate studies, climate modelling would be much better as we ‘already know the physics’ but lack the computing power; and that additional modelling capability would give people what they really want to know, which is what the localised weather will be (in the coming weeks or two).

While more computing power would always be welcome, modelling – however finely executed – will always be hampered by the relative lack of data we have today around the world.  And in any case the weather is only one element of the threats we all face. 

This is why we are building AirSensa – to generate far deeper and wider datasets that could feed the demand for modelling (including the one that Professor Palmer wants) and, more importantly, to provide true hyperlocal data across a wide range of factors to gain the insights needed to help people, businesses, and investors understand and adjust to how pollution and climate change are impacting the world.

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AirSensa’s COVID-19 recovered patient app

AirSensa’s COVID-19 recovered patient app

There is a worrying link between small increases in air pollution and mortality rates of COVID-19. Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health found that a small increase of 1 microgram per cubic metre in fine particulate matter (known as PM2.5) leads to an increase of 15% in COVID-19 deaths.

This is just one of the first pieces of research on the impact of Coronavirus and our longer-term health that we expect to see in the coming months. Emerging data from around the world show that around half of recovered COVID-19 patients suffer some degree of scarring on their lungs. This is likely to make them more vulnerable to environmental conditions, including air pollution and rapid temperature gradients (such as happens with urban heat islands). There is also considerable evidence that the impact of COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting some ethnic groups.

We have developed the AirSensa Recovered COVID-19 Patient App using our proprietary analytics platform STORRM, to support the long term understanding of COVID-19 on health. By producing an app to help track the continuing and post-recovery status of COVID-19 sufferers – and particularly how environmental conditions relate – we will be creating data which will be of significant interest to health authorities, insurers, and researchers.

It is important to note that this will not be a contact tracing app but instead focused on the long-term health and wellbeing of those impacted by the disease.

AirSensa Post Recovery App

We are creating a free-to-user app for patients to self-report their daily health status, and also if and when they notice any symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing fits, or other issues.

Collecting such data will achieve a number of objectives:

  • Track whether symptoms reoccur or reinfections are happening
  • Provide real-time insight into upcoming potential challenges for local healthcare facilities
  • Give researchers the ability over time to relate such symptoms to environmental factors such as air pollution, and understand whether (and which) environmental conditions exacerbate or cause increased respiratory issues

The app could also be used to disseminate information directly to sufferers from designated public health authorities and/or healthcare providers.

Content specification
We have assembled a group of medical experts led by Professor Pali Hungin, former president of the British Medical Association in the UK, to contribute to the app content. Over time, we will continue to add medical and academic contributors from around the world to that group to work with us on future developments, which we expect to happen quickly and regularly over the coming months.

The app is highly flexible and capable of deploying any question set we wish, allowing us to develop the content – and indeed entirely new topics – over time.

Targeted users
We are happy for anybody that believes they’ve had COVID-19 to download and use the app, but it is primarily aimed at those that have been hospitalised for the disease and subsequently discharged.

Relationship to air pollution
AirSensa technology generates hyperlocal data on air pollution in real-time, monitoring conditions at many more measurement points than current statutory monitoring stations. We created the technology because pollution which impacts people’s health (particularly the more vulnerable in our communities) is highly localised, and current monitoring is not fit for purpose.

COVID-19 is adding a new cohort of vulnerable people to existing groups, all of whom will have access to hotspot alerts based on our hyperlocal real-time data as it becomes available.

If you would like to know more or receive updates, please go to: https://airsensa.com/the-solution/individual/#post-recovery-app

The demonstrator app (Android version) will be available to download during w/c 1 June; please register for updates to be informed when the app can be downloaded.

Jonathan Steel
CEO, AirSensa

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AirSensa partner completes successful crowdfunding

We’d like to extend our congratulations to our partners Airhead for their successful Kickstarter crowdfunding raise.  Airhead is a cutting edge, British face mask company that’s combining best in class technology with great fashion to provide unique and compelling personal protection products.  Now that face masks are critically important in this Covid-19 world, this is a very timely initiative.  

AirSensa is working with Airhead to execute a world first: testing and demonstrating advanced tech face masks in the real world, not just the lab.  Using hyperlocal, real-time data from AirSensa’s installation base in Manchester, England, Airhead will be able demonstrate a range of capabilities both for today’s product and for planned innovations as they develop in the future.

AirSensa’s exemplar network in Manchester is growing towards its target of 200 city centre sensors, in partnership with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and three Manchester universities, providing real time hyperlocal data on air pollution, 24 hours a day.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

www.airhead.cc

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Why AirSensa is crowdfunding on Seedrs

AirSensa has been evolving responding to market changes since Day One. Initially starting out as a not-for-profit, we built through phases to a large trial in London involving 100 sensors that showcased the need for hyperlocal monitoring. But we realised quickly that to create a tangible and lasting solution at scale, we needed to commercialise to generate a viable and lasting model, something we couldn’t do within the third sector. We knew our solution had a unique value to governments, industries and ultimately to consumers, so it was a natural choice to move into the private sector.

We have been fortunate that our investors to date have provided crucial advice, expanded our network and opened up opportunities. But as we sought to grow our market awareness, particularly amongst consumers, we wanted to look at how we could create a wider investment community.

Crowdfunding provides us with answers to those opportunities. Widening our investor base in this way, by its very nature, widens awareness and support across multiple countries, and enables us to build a community which has a vested interest in our success. We also gain a wider audience to learn from and test new products and services, such as the COVID-19 Post recovery and Personal Exposure mobile apps.

Creating momentum – especially in urban and industrial environments – supports the ecosystem of data that we believe will tackle air pollution. Hyperlocal data, in real-time, can exponentially increase our understanding of air pollution and provide invaluable insights to all of us into how to avoid the worst of air pollution (hotspots) and when and how we should travel to limit our exposure. Armed with that knowledge, we can all make better decisions, whether we’re individuals, city authorities, or companies that may be contributing to pollution levels.

If you’re concerned about the air that you and your family breathe and would like to help us grow our hyperlocal monitoring networks, get involved in our community. And to find out more about our crowdfunding campaign, please go to www.seedrs.com/airsensa.

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Easing the lockdown – and the importance of data

Boris Johnson last night announced that a new alert system will be put in place in England to track the coronavirus. The data that results from comprehensive monitoring will then be used to inform policy on further easing of the lockdown (or the opposite).

As strong proponents of hyperlocal data from pervasive monitoring, we applaud this move, and the recognition that evidence-based policy- and decision-making is a good thing is a huge step forward in government thinking. We have been rapidly moving towards a digitised economy for a number of years, so using data more effectively in government would seem a clear and obvious step.

But if this approach is right for Covid-19, why can’t we take the same approach for air pollution? Air pollution is hyperlocal by its nature (short-lived very localised hotpots accounting for much of the health damage done), yet we don’t monitor it hyper-locally despite the technology being clearly available today.

No-one would underplay the danger of this pandemic, and we can’t yet estimate the final tally of those unfortunate enough to lose their lives as a result. But air pollution kills at least 40,000 people every year in the UK, and it would appear from recent research that high pollution levels increase the fatality rate of Covid-19, as well as endangering recovering patients with damaged lungs that are more susceptible to the impact of air pollution.

As Boris said tonight:

  • ‘Every day, with ever-increasing data…’
  • ‘Our system will be able to detect local flare-ups in your area, as well as giving us a national picture’
  • ‘We’ll be monitoring our progress locally, regionally, and nationally’

All this could also be true for a national system of hyperlocal air pollution monitoring. Surely the time has come to create such a system for the UK?

It could give everyone a far more accurate picture of air pollution on each street, around each home or office building, and wherever they travel (or planned to travel). It could alert vulnerable people (asthmatics, heart disease and cancer patients, and people with small children for example) so they could avoid the worst of the pollution.

But it could also give local authorities and the government all the insights they need to make simple interventions that will cut pollution effectively, rather than the broad-brush ‘do it and hope’ measures currently taken on modelled (and therefore inaccurate) data.

Boris – for a tiny fraction of what air pollution costs the NHS and our economy every year, we could build such a system right now – let’s do it!

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