OpenAQ

OpenAQ is a 501(c)3 non-profit based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to aggregate and harmonize open air quality data across the globe and to build an ecosystem of people across sectors and geographies to use these open data to fight the unequal access to clean air to breathe — air inequality. As context, according to the WHO, air pollution is responsible for 1 out of 8 deaths, making air pollution one of the biggest public health and human rights issues of our time.

The OpenAQ Platform currently houses about half a billion data points from 11,000+ stations in 93 countries and is the largest open air quality data platform of its kind, in terms of measurements and geography. We receive ~35 million data requests/month to the open API.

The underlying platform that fetches, stores, and serves data is completely open-source and has subsequently been built by a global community of scientists, software developers and others invested in creating a global air quality open data-sharing infrastructure over the past 5 years. The data are used for a wide variety of applications, including everything from air quality forecasts produced by NASA scientists to apps communicating air quality in Delhi to data-driven media reports for the general public.

By filling this basic data access gap and convening a global community of folks passionate about fighting air pollution, OpenAQ empowers a wide variety of individuals, organizations, and sectors across the globe to do more with these existing data.