WIPO highlights Peruvian start-up company qAIRa

By Espinosa Bellido Abogados

As part of the World Intellectual Property Day celebrations, focused on innovation for a green future, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) interviewed Mónica Abarca, a young Peruvian entrepreneur and innovator whose start-up company qAIRa focuses on addressing air pollution and is revolutionizing access to air quality information.

qAIRa uses extensive networks of unmanned aerial systems – or drones – which consist of a personalized multirotor called Andrean Drone and a hangar to recharge the batteries of the drone called qBOX. This system works together with a low-cost static module called qHAWAXfor air quality monitoring. These cost-effective tools send air quality information (CO, NO2, SO2, H2S, O3, dust PM2.5, dust PM10, temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, UV radiation, and noise level) in real time to servers, where the information is processed and displayed on a web-based map or a mobile application called qAIRamap.

A patent has been granted on the air quality monitoring system in the qAIRa drone by the National Institute for the Defense of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) of Peru.

“Using data analytics, we are able to forecast the air quality in different parts of a given city 24-48 hours ahead.In doing so, we provide companies and governments with robust, autonomous, long-duration and internet-connected equipment for real-time environmental monitoring. However, our ultimate goal is to democratize air quality information and make it available to everyone,” Abarca explains.

“Despite the public’s increasing concern around the hazards of pollution, little to no information on air quality is publicly available, especially in emerging economies. Our solution fills this gap; qairamap is open publicly, enabling citizens to be conscious about air quality in their local environment.”