AirQo uses low-cost, African designed monitors and AI to close the continent’s data gap on air pollution, helping cities and communities see toxic air and act to protect public health
As cities across Africa grow, air pollution is becoming one of their most dangerous but least visible threats.
In 2019, air pollution was the second-leading risk factor for death across the continent, contributing to an estimated 1.1 million deaths in a single year.
Without reliable, affordable air quality data, governments cannot see where pollution is coming from, how severe it is, or whether policies to reduce it are working.
The result is that millions of people continue to breathe toxic air without warning or protection, while conventional monitoring stations remain too expensive and difficult to maintain at the density African cities need.
AirQo was founded at Makerere University in Uganda in 2015. After moving from rural Uganda to Kampala, founder Prof. Engineer Bainomugisha saw the effects of worsening urban air quality, but found the local data needed to understand the problem was largely missing.
AirQo’s monitors are built for African conditions, including dust, power interruptions and limited internet connectivity. Fixed monitors are complemented by mobile devices mounted on motorcycle taxis, known as boda bodas, to map pollution at street level.
Data from the network is shared through open data platforms, dashboards, mobile tools and APIs. AI and machine-learning models help calibrate sensors, check data quality, forecast pollution, identify hotspots and guide where new monitors are most needed.
AirQo now operates more than 500 monitors across 16 cities in nine African countries, including Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa, giving more than 30 million people access to real-time air quality information. Its evidence has supported Uganda’s first national air quality regulations and informed traffic-management measures in Kampala.
AirQo is helping the world reach a positive tipping point, a threshold beyond which change becomes self-propelling. By making pollution visible and actionable, AirQo is contributing to the global goal of 500 major cities having operational air quality monitoring by 2030.
By 2030, AirQo aims to expand to more than 50 cities, launch an open-source platform with a conversational AI interface, and grow the Africa Clean Air Network, which connects 30 cities to share knowledge and policy expertise. It is also training the continent’s next generation of clean-air technologists through its Makerere University DevCon programme.
Air pollution has remained invisible across too many African cities because the data needed to understand it has been scarce. AirQo was built in Africa for the realities of African cities, bringing together locally designed monitors, open data and artificial intelligence so that evidence can move from the street into public decisions.
Being named an Earthshot Prize Finalist will help us scale this infrastructure, equip more African technologists and city leaders, and make reliable air quality data a public good.
