“From our participation and recognition from the 4YFN Awards, we realized that our mission to improve the health of billions – is also important to cities and government.”

Breezometer is a successful company today, providing the most high-resolution and real-time air quality information though AI and machine learning to gather and understand data from multiple sources — including more than 47,000 sensors worldwide. They also won the 4YFN Awards in 2016 and we have been talking with them to know how the 4YFN Awards experience has helped them to boost their project. Read the full interview here.

For those who don’t know BreezoMeter what is it that you do? What’s special about your company?

BreezoMeter improves the health and safety for billions of people worldwide, by providing accurate and actionable environmental data and insights. We transform live environmental intelligence into actionable insights and delivers them to consumers through mobile apps, smart home IoT devices, cars and other connected experiences. Brands like Apple, L’Oreal, Volvo and AstraZeneca rely on BreezoMeter to provide real-time air quality data to their customers, so they can make informed decisions about when to go outside, how to best protect themselves, which travel routes to take, and even where to live.

BreezoMeter factors information taken from multiple data sources. Information from monitoring stations, low-cost sensors, satellites, meteorological data, live traffic, land cover information & more are combined to increase the accuracy of prediction, together with air quality dispersion models (some for natural and some for human-caused sources of emission). The result is street-level air quality resolution (within 5 meters), and pollen, pollutants and fire data, in more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.breezometer.com. 

What has been your biggest challenge in the last year? And your biggest learning?

BreezoMeter is relied on by businesses and consumers alike to provide hyperlocal air quality, pollen and fires information relevant to each and every user.  With the changing climate, worsening environmental events have led to further unpredictability in the patterns of air pollution, worsening fire seasons, and more extreme and lengthier pollen seasons. Thanks to our growing team and commitment to improve our technology we work to increase our sources of data that go into our algorithms as well as the QA processes we have in place to ensure accuracy. Additionally, with the unpredictability of environmental events has come a greater awareness from the public and businesses serving the health of the public, which has driven further understanding of why accurate environmental insights are needed, which is why our data is now available in iPhones all over the world.  

You have won the 4YFN Awards in Smart City Expo 2016. What is the most exciting thing for you about your experience at 4YFN event?

We joined the competition towards the beginning of our journey at BreezoMeter so you can imagine that we felt wholeheartedly encouraged by the experience that we were working towards the right goal. That. we were answering a real need for access to actionable, meaningful and relevant data for cities and the public they are committed to serve, and the contribution it may have for future city planning.

Tell us more about the most recent project you were working on and how 4YFN has helped  (or you think can help you in a way) to achieve your goals.

From our participation and recognition from 4YFN we realized that our mission to improve the health of billions is also important to cities and government. This together with increasing awareness around climate change and the effect that environmental hazards have on our health, opened us up to explore further uses for our environmental insights, and to the knowledge that if these insights are important to cities and government than we know that at the end of the day, the consumer the daily user values this information to protect their health, even when it comes to day to day decision making. This has paved the way for the work we have done for our consumers by providing them personalized health recommendations based on the air quality levels as their location, features that allow them to choose where to go for outdoor activity or even the cleanest place to live, and they can even compare their air quality levels with the new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for long term exposure.

Any advice for startups that are planning to apply for the 4YFN Awards 2022?

4YFN is a great place for startups to share their innovations. Not only can you receive validation from a panel of experts but you increase exposure to investors, connections to like minded innovators, and increase your network of startup peers. We are grateful for our experience with 4YFN and highly recommend participation for startups planning to apply.

**If you are an startup and want to participate in the 4YFN Awards 2022, apply here before 24 November!**