Serbia, do you know what you breathe?
It’s official, AirCare is now live in Serbia! After 2 months of hard work, with people helping from Macedonia and Serbia alike, we are able to launch AirCare in our second country in the Balkans, and I couldn’t be more excited!
Try it out — download here: https://getaircare.com
What is AirCare?
AirCare is a web and mobile app that helps visualize complicated air quality and pollution data, in a simple and understandable way.
Formally known as MojVozduh (МојВоздух), the app uses public and volunteer air quality measuring stations on the ground, as well as satellite data from the European Space Agency, to display air pollution data in an accessable and understandable way for anyone interested: citizens, activists and scientists alike.
By using simple visualization techniques, like charts, graphs, calendars and maps, AirCare displays pollution information visually, without the need for long text descriptions.
For those interested in an overview of the air they breathe, AirCare displays the simple AQI — Air Quality Index indicator, which takes all pollutants measured from one station into account. For those who want more in depth data, breakdowns per pollutant (PM10, PM2.5, CO, NO2, SO2, O3) are avaliable as well.
How is AQI calculated? Why is it different from some other places?
AQI has many different implementations, apps or sites use different variants of it. Some of these are “EU AQI”, “EU CAQI”, “US AQI”… Because of this, you may find that AQI on other places differs from the one in AirCare, and that’s normal.
AirCare uses EU AQI, a simple index that takes all pollutant measurements from a given hour of a given station, divides them by their maximum allowed value, and chooses the biggest result as the index to display.
Why Serbia?
AirCare (known as MojVozduh in Macedonia) came on the scene in 2014. Since then, it has amassed over 100.000 downloads in Macedonia, making air pollution as a primary topic of discussion among citizens and politicians, as well as sparking numerous protests for cleaner air!
The impact that AirCare made in Macedonia was just the start of our ambitions. Our goal is to spread it as a tool for citizens and activists around the Balkans, and then around the 🌎!
Serbia is very close to Macedonia, both by culture, language and air pollution issues, so it was a prime market for our initial expansion.
By using open data from 65 government measuring stations, we were able to get a clear picture of how the air quality looks in Serbia, hour by hour, and display it to citizens.
What are the goals of AirCare?
- Inform citizens about the state of the air they breathe
- Educate them about the sources of pollution, as well as the effects it has on their health
- Empower citizens and activists to act, both by changing their bad habits, as well as giving them a tool to put political pressure on government institutions that are tasked with tackling this problem
By using these 3 steps, we believe that we can help every country tackle air pollution issues that take away so many lives every year (Macedonia has 3000 yearly premature deaths attributed to the bad air quality).
Breathing clean air is a human right, and AirCare is here to help you secure that right!
Who is behind AirCare?
AirCare is a group of eco enthusiasts who want a greener and brighter future for our planet. Gorjan Jovanovski leads the group, but there are many volunteers that help make this a reality, like Gorjan Sukov & Viktorija Anchevska.
In Macedonia we are supported by multiple organizations, including activists from Skopje Smog Alarm, while in Serbia, we are supported by Ne Davimo Beograd!
Finally, where do I get AirCare?
Website: https://getaircare.com
Android: Google Play Store |iOS: Apple App Store
AirCare has air quality data for Serbia and Macedonia, and hopefully soon from the whole Balkans! It’s available in 4 languages: Serbian, Macedonian, English and Albanian.
