AirCare has over 500,000 users, and over 10 national and international awards, and this year we were named the youngest European innovators at the World Summit Awards for 2020!

Gorjan Jovanovski

AirCare was a completely random application, and I definitely did not plan for it to become world famous. While I was a student in 2014, I wanted to learn how to make apps for Android phones, but I also wanted my first app to be useful.

Searching the internet, I came across data on air pollution from the state measuring stations in Macedonia, and it all started from there. That data was quite confusing, so I simplified it and displayed it through an app that everyone would have in their pocket.

AirCare soon became known on social and traditional media, raising public awareness of air pollution among citizens, and pressuring state institutions to take a more serious approach to solving this problem.

There were protests in the streets of all major cities as citizens awoke to the seriousness of the problem. Starting from industry, to household heating and illegal landfills, they all contribute to a carcinogenic environment, while the constitution guarantees us living in an environment that is clean. Thanks to the pressures, certain reforms have begun, and I hope that we will continue in that direction at an accelerated pace.

I wanted to repeat the success we achieved here outside our borders, so I slowly started adding new countries to the application. Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro were among the first. Through local cooperation with eco organizations, we achieved wonderful collaboration, and AirCare became an additional tool in the fight for clean air!

But our story did not stop there. Today we are present in 46 countries, from America to Australia, with over 15,000 locations for which we have hourly updates on air pollution. AirCare has over 500,000 users, and over 10 national and international awards, and this year we were named the youngest European innovators at the World Summit Awards for 2020! Every recognition and award makes us even more eager to continue our fight!

That is why we are very happy to be part of the campaign United Balkans for clean air. We believe that only through joint effort will we be able to achieve results at both local and regional level. Thanks to applications like AirCare, we now know what we are breathing, but we still need to know the consequences of inhaling toxins from the air. This is exactly what the campaign offers, through concrete research, data and figures, which make the long-term economic and health consequences of air pollution much clearer.

We all have the right to breathe clean air, and together we will fight for a green and clean future!

 

Gorjan Jovanovski, Environmental Activist, Founder of AirCare, TED Speaker