Are you? Welcome to the inaugural edition of WeAreAirAware, the first of our fortnightly emails as we build a company through the ZINC venture builder. "We" is William Hicks and I along with a constellation of stellar colleagues making up the Air Aware Labs founding team. More on our team later.

If you are not Air Aware yet, we hope you will be! This newsletter is aimed at investors, collaborators, future hires and early adopters of our products. If you are interested in how toxic air pollution affects individuals, and how founding a tech company will help, this newsletter is for you!

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Hot off the press

• we had our first stocktake meeting with the Zinc team today. Thank you Paul Kirby Bernadette Behnke Rosie Webster for putting us through our paces!
• now we are full (clean) steam ahead as we progress to the Zinc investment committee in March. Our top, top priorities (from a very long list) are 1. user research and 2. commercial model
• user research: the cornerstone of building a business that makes a difference. We have to know whether our product will help people live the lives they want to live, or we won't have the impact at scale that we are seeking. So our first group to start testing our product is elite and pro sportspeople who train outdoors.
• why? air pollution affects us all but some groups, due to age, lifestyle or underlying conditions, are even more affected. We have all these groups in our sights but first want to focus our research efforts
• commercial model: we need to demonstrate profitability and scale. Not necessarily now, but soon and for the rest of Air Aware's life. Environmental problems, which affect everyone, offer both challenges and opportunities.

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Go with us towards clean air

• do you know any elite athletes? Please find out if they'd like to be part of a tech revolution in managing their exposure to air pollution. If they do - please connect us!
• we're also looking for corporate partners. This could be anything at this stage - collaboration on data, access to networks, branding connections. We are keen to explore so please connect us!
• we've jumped many steps ahead in the last fortnight. Huge numbers of people have helped this happen. We'd like to recognise in particular Amanda Vine Jim Newton Zhenghong Liu Ben Brabyn Colette Harris Simon Birkett for their engagement and support!

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Meet the team

Each edition we will introduce a member of our team. This week it's William Hicks, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer. Will holds a PhD and postdoc from Imperial College London. His academic research includes measuring and modelling non-exhaust emissions from road traffic, urban air pollution sources and indoor air quality. He is excited to co-lead Air Aware to develop a tailored and personalised air quality information to empower individuals to reduce their exposure to urban air pollution.

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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 already, please send me (Louise Thomas) or William Hicks a message!

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