Miami City to Monitor Air Quality Using Blockchain Technology

Already associated with a range of use cases from real estate to microfinance and even drone racing, the Algorand blockchain has now been enlisted to combat urban air pollution.

PlanetWatch, the world’s first decentralised indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring network built on Algorand, has selected the US city of Miami to host its system of pollution sensors.

US Project Follows Successful European Rollout

In what is the first such deployment in a major US location, the Miami project follows the successful rollout of PlanetWatch’s technology in several European cities and builds on commitments made as part of the Floridan city’s “Miami Forever Climate Ready” initiative.

These commitments flow from last month’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), held in Glasgow in the wake of the World Health Organization updating its Global Air Quality guidelines.

Almost Half of Americans Live in Polluted Environments

The selection of Miami as the location for the first US PlanetWatch project makes sense as recent evidence suggests more than 40 percent of Americans live in places with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, most often heavily urbanised environments.

Backed by blockchain VC firm Borderless Capital’s US$10 million PLANETS fund, so-called “PlanetWatchers” will host air-quality sensors to collect green data for transcription onto the Algorand blockchain. Contributors will receive PLANETS tokens as compensation, with collected information used to identify pollution hotspots and provide a database of environmental analytics to protect the future health of Miami’s population.

“It is hugely exciting that innovators like PlanetWatch and Algorand are coming [to Miami] to implement major sustainable technology in the US,” commented crypto-friendly Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. “Algorand is a carbon-negative blockchain, and the data from this project will play a crucial role in our climate adaptation efforts, as well as our ambitions to make Miami an epicentre for digital capital markets.”

For his part, PlanetWatch CEO Claudio Parrinello confirmed Miami as the France-based environmental tech startup’s first large-scale project in the US.

PlanetWatch is built on the contribution of individuals, and the people of Miami will play an invaluable role in expanding an air quality database that will help protect the health of our people and our planet.

Claudio Parrinello, CEO, PlanetWatch

Algorand’s Australian Connection

In early 2021, Blockchain Australia Solutions also partnered up with Algorand to enhance applications from quality assurance to eco-friendly housing.