Aire Publico

Designed as the world opened up after the COVID-10 pandemic, Aire Publico responds to the call for accurate, community owned air quality data in urban areas impacted by invisible air pollution. The devices uses a highly compact and low-cost ThZ sensing and imaging technology developed at CERN to detect and diagnose pollution sources, making air qulaity data available through a citizen science platform that visualizes and maps AQI data.

Aire Publico was developed as part of CERN’s Technology Transfer program with EU’s ATTRACT, which aims to translate deep technology towards UN SDGs. We worked directly with South Williamsburg’s El Puente social justice organization to develop, prototype and test the design. El Puente represents a region of Brooklyn with the highest rates of asthma and COVID-19 deaths which they link to air quality data.

Aire Publico is developed to be deployed as a citizen science tool by El Puente in high-risk, high-trafficked locations including bus stops, play grounds, and bike paths.

Team: Mary Lempres, Charlotte Böhning, Ridima Jain, ATTRACT, CBI

My Contribution: Design research, Discovery, Prototyping, Presentation, Design Documentation