Welcome to the forty-fifth edition of our newsletter, as we prepare for our seminar with Global Sustainable Sport and join sports-focused events. This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products. And we now have over 2500 valued followers!

We celebrated National Fitness Day yesterday with awareness raising about the impact of air pollution on athletic performance. Research shows that even modest increases in pollution can slow marathon runners by 25–32 seconds and reduce footballers' performance by around 15%. This is because poor air quality makes your lungs and heart work harder, reducing stamina and slowing recovery. However, getting out and exercising is still the best choice - including choosing active travel for commutes. So, while William Hicks is preparing to run a marathon this weekend, he will be seeking the cleanest air possible! To make sure our insights help you live a healthier life, please join us on our mission - Personalising Air Quality, for everyone.

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Hot off the press

• we have been out and about promoting Air Aware Labs! On Tuesday, Lia and Will joined "How Sport is driving Sustainability" and made great connections in advance of our global seminar. Will has also been presenting to his alma mater, Imperial College, on his start up journey. And Louise spent a day this week with the Boardwave network of European software leaders
• we have also been making the most of various programmes. We are finalising our work with Sustainable Ventures who have been helping us to develop our commercial strategy. And we are now fully engaged with the Mountside Ventures investment readiness accelerator. Meanwhile, we have started our engagement with BridgeAI to develop our AI models for air pollution and health
• we are now preparing to raise £200k investment - please contact us if you would like to see our pitch deck!

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Go with us towards clean air

• please join our webinar on Tuesday! The topic is “Racing towards clean air – how high can sports aim?” and we have a fantastic panel
• next week we will be pitching in the Santander X start up heats - wish us luck!
• we continue to be amazed by all the support we get from far and wide. Big shout outs to Kris Jones (He/Him) Theresia M.R. Heinrich Lee Ashby Fannie Serrano Ashlie Tapias Silva Emily Pilsworth Véronique Rapetti Sangeeta S Jose-Luiz Moura Kath Easthope Andrew Bradley Leslie Keener Jeff Sankoff Jasper McDowell Mike Laflin Taras Kovtun Yasemin Gunes Ben Brabyn Michael Solomon Sonja Graham Carol Constant Jaxx Nelson David Peto Amy Wilson Elizabeth Corse Judy Hadden Alexandra Smith John Spindler Dominic O' Neill Dr Pegah Farzam Tom Edwards. We hope you'll all continue with us towards clean air.

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Meet the partner

We are starting a series of spotlights on the many people and organisations who have supported our journey so far. This week, we are meeting Adrian Hooper, Project Manager at Sustrans. Adrian says: "As a human geographer, I’ve always been fascinated by the interaction and relationship between people and places, particularly in complex urban settings. For me, the city is my lab and the challenge to optimise its functionality my motivation. I’ve worked in transport planning for almost two decades, working on various high profile urban infrastructure projects in the rail and highways sector, with my focus shifting in recent years to active travel. The multiple and far reaching benefits of improving streets for walking and cycling are quite remarkable, from increased physical activity to better air quality, quieter and calmer neighbourhoods, and more shared space for communities to come together, let alone the longer term benefits related to climate change mitigation. In a highly and densely populated city like London, these issues are critically important to improving people’s daily quality of life."

"Being able to partner with Air Aware Labs on the DEFRA funded air quality improvements options appraisal project in Harlesden, Brent, has been incredibly rewarding. Air Aware Labs expertise provided a much deeper understanding and analysis of existing pollution levels and the potential impact each of the proposed infrastructure design improvements could have on air quality. It’s been interesting to see their novel approach to using real time data and AI modelling to determine levels of personal exposure to air pollution, with the evidence base helping make the case for improving air quality irrefutable. It’s exciting to be addressing such an urgent yet relatively unknown issue, at least amongst the general public, and I’m optimistic that through collaborative working we’ll begin to see a real shift in public awareness and action in the near future."

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Get in touch

Please follow Air Aware Labs to stay in touch with our progress. If anything in this newsletter has piqued your interest, please send me (Louise Thomas) or William Hicks a message! You can also email us at hello@airawarelabs.com

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