Algorand Platform Announces its First Major Environmental Use Case: PlanetWatch Global Air Quality Monitoring

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Energy-efficient blockchain to capture, crowd-sourced data to combat air pollution with reward scheme and global ledger

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Jan 24, 2020, 03:00 ET

BOSTON, Jan. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Algorand today announced a unique initiative where PlanetWatch, an environmental monitoring service, will build the world's first immutable air quality ledger utilizing the Algorand blockchain and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. PlanetWatch will store data gathered from air quality sensors onto the Algorand blockchain, and subsequently reward contributions to the ecosystem by distributing the PLANET token, a utility token, to sensor owners.

With the World Bank citing air pollution as the fourth largest health risk in the world, responsible air quality monitoring is a global challenge for governments, regulators, and citizens. Current air quality monitoring methods are inadequate due to no real-time data reporting, which leads to delays in pollution peaks detection and no timely warnings for endangered populations.

PlanetWatch is developing a global network of air quality sensors and environmentally conscious people who install air quality sensors outside their homes or carry sensors while commuting and travelling, with the aim of validating, filtering, and displaying data on the Internet and through a mobile application in real-time. The validated data will be transcribed onto the Algorand blockchain to create an immutable air quality repository accessible to all participants. Sensor owners will receive PLANET tokens in exchange for contributing air quality data to the repository.

"Algorand's protocol was built by the team to be energy conscious with minimal processing power needed to achieve consensus in its innovative pure proof-of-stake approach," said W. Sean Ford, Chief Operating Officer at Algorand. "The eco-friendliness of the Algorand network makes for a natural partnership with PlanetWatch to help global populations access transparent, reliable information about air quality in their locations. Blockchain, in general, receives criticism for high-energy outputs, but with Algorand's energy efficient network participation, we are working to be a part of environmental solutions from air quality and beyond, and are thrilled to partner with one of the environment's biggest advocates, PlanetWatch."

"The missing link in air quality monitoring is a high-density, low-cost sensor network, delivering real-time data," said Claudio Parrinello, CEO of PlanetWatch. "Historically, air pollution is monitored through large, expensive scientific instruments installed in a small number of locations, with data not being published in real-time. Through Algorand's highly secure, fast, and energy-efficient protocol, data is recorded onto the blockchain for anyone to access. This data has vast commercial and scientific value as air quality pollution will become more prevalent in the coming decades."

PlanetWatch is the first blockchain company to join the spin-off partnership program by CERN, the largest fundamental physics laboratory in the world, in a continued effort to improve global air quality monitoring and thus contribute to solving the public health challenge of air pollution affecting millions.

"We are very happy to support Planetwatch as a CERN Spin-off. Their commitment to improve air quality monitoring worldwide is important for society," said Giovanni Anelli, Head of Knowledge Transfer at CERN. "Planetwatch will use the C2MON data acquisition framework developed at CERN, and will soon join the French business incubation center of CERN technologies Innogex in France."

About Algorand Inc.
Algorand Inc. built the world's first open source, permissionless, pure proof-of-stake blockchain protocol for the next generation of financial products. This blockchain, the Algorand protocol, is the brainchild of Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali. A technology company dedicated to removing friction from financial exchange, Algorand Inc. is powering the DeFi evolution by enabling the creation and exchange of value, building new financial tools and services, bringing assets on-chain and providing responsible privacy models. For more information, visit https://www.algorand.com/

About PlanetWatch s.a.s.
Planetwatch s.a.s., is a high-tech startup based in France, less than a mile away from CERN. By leveraging synergically the Algorand blockchain, advanced data acquisition software developed at CERN and high-performance yet affordable air quality sensors developed by a major research institute, Planetwatch decentralizes, incentivizes and gamifies air quality monitoring. Planetwatch is going to deploy dense, low-cost air quality monitoring networks delivering real-time data and building the first global immutable ledger for historical air quality data. For more information, visit https://www.planetwatch.io.

Contact: Anastasia Golovina, [email protected]

SOURCE Algorand Foundation