Clean Air for Pune — How MyAQI Works, in Plain Language
A citizens' guide to what we are building and why.
A plain-language companion to our technical strategy note
The idea in one breath: Pune's air is often unhealthy, but most of us can't see it or prove where it comes from. MyAQI puts an affordable air-quality monitor on thousands of ordinary balconies, so the city's air is measured everywhere, all the time, by citizens themselves. That shared map of clean and dirty air is what finally lets us — and the government — act on the worst sources.
Why this matters
We already know dirty air harms our health — our children's lungs, our parents' hearts — and scientists have studied Pune's pollution for years. We need daily, on-the-ground data to show exactly where and when the air goes bad, make it available online, and use that data to build the public pressure to actually fix it.
That is a job only citizens can do — let's have inexpensive monitors at building / home level spread across most neighbourhoods, instead of relying only on government figures at city / area level based on a few expensive machines.
MyAQI has two simple parts
Think of it as a lens and a detective.
The part
What it does
1 · The lens
(citizens)
Thousands of low-cost monitors on citizens' balconies or their buildings, measuring the air minute by minute and sharing it on a live public map. This shows us, in real time, where the air is clean and where it spikes.
2 · The detective
(the community + science)
MyAQI is working with a couple of vendors to make AQ monitors available at low cost (< ₹4,000). We hope societies — or even individual apartment owners — buy them online.
The monitors connect to the MyAQI app so citizens can see the exact air quality at their location, spot trends, and link them to a probable cause (construction sites, proximity to main roads and crowded junctions, firewood burning, festival crackers). This identifies the real polluters so the right fixes can follow.
The lens is ours to run — cheap, everywhere, always on. The detective work can be supported with deeper scientific analysis by expert institutions like IIT Bombay, because it needs specialised labs. MyAQI asks the experts to do it and shares the findings — never trying to be the lab itself. That is how MyAQI stays a citizens' movement while still trusted by scientists and government.
What's in it for you and your family
The outdoor monitor tells you the air around your home. You can also add an optional indoor monitor, and together they let MyAQI give you personal, practical advice to protect your family — not just numbers on a map:
Know when it's bad — get an alert when the air outside or inside crosses a harmful level, so you can close windows, switch on a purifier, or keep children and elders indoors.
See indoor vs outdoor — cooking smoke, mosquito coils and dust push indoor air up too; the indoor monitor shows when your home itself needs airing out or cleaning.
Simple guidance, in plain words — MyAQI turns the readings into "safe to open up now" or "keep it closed and filter the air," tailored to your home — a daily reason the monitor earns its place.
What makes the citizen readings trustworthy
Honest, not perfect. A cheap monitor is not a laboratory instrument — so we don't pretend it is. Each reading comes with a clear margin of "give or take," corrected against a nearby high-quality reference. Being honest about the small uncertainty is what makes citizen data believable rather than dismissable.
Compared to trusted neighbours. We tune each device against the nearest official monitor — never a single city-wide number, because air quality changes street by street. Local partners and government bodies can supply this reference data.
The crowd points to where it matters. When the map keeps lighting up the same trouble spots, that's exactly where it's worth sending the scientists — so a little expensive science, aimed well, goes a long way.
What happens next
Grow the citizen network across Pune's neighbourhoods.
Run a small pilot: take samples at the first trouble spots the map reveals, and have the scientists produce one round of "what's-causing-it" findings — proving the whole idea before scaling up.
Keep the citizen app about the air you breathe and what you can do — simple and useful every day, with the heavy science surfacing only as plain-language findings when ready.
In one line: citizens measure the air, scientists explain what's dirtying it, and together we make Pune act — this stays everyone's project.