#FoundersOnFire with Dr Will Hicks of Air Aware Labs

In this episode of Founders on Fire, host and Chief Trailblazer Rose Ross sits down with Dr Will Hicks, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Air Aware Labs, winner of both the 2025 Sustainable Tech and Firestarter Trailblazers Awards.

Air pollution is something that affects all of us, but understanding exactly what we are breathing can be surprisingly difficult. A monitoring station several miles away may provide a broad picture of conditions across a city, but pollution can vary significantly from one road to the next and throughout the course of a day.

Air Aware Labs is tackling that problem by making air quality data much more personal.

Founded by Dr Hicks and Louise Thomas, the company has developed AirTrack, using high-resolution environmental modelling and location data to help people understand their individual exposure to pollution and make practical choices about where, when and how they travel, exercise and spend their time.

The conversation explores the science behind personalised air quality, its growing role in health and employee wellbeing, the implications for sustainable businesses and cities, and why environmental data could become an increasingly important part of the information captured by our health and fitness devices.

Measuring the air people actually breathe

One of the central themes of the conversation is the difference between knowing the general air quality in a city and understanding the pollution an individual is actually exposed to.

Traditional monitoring stations play an essential role in measuring air pollution, but they cannot necessarily represent conditions on every street.

Pollution levels can change according to traffic, buildings, weather conditions, the time of day and numerous other local factors. A route along a busy road can therefore produce a very different level of exposure from a quieter parallel street only a short distance away.

Air Aware Labs combines multiple environmental data sources and modelling techniques to estimate pollution at street level before relating that information to an individual’s route, activity and journey. Its aim is to move air quality information away from broad city-level readings towards something people can act upon in their everyday lives.

That could mean choosing a cleaner walking or cycling route, altering the time of a run or simply understanding when pollution exposure is likely to be highest.

From academic research to real-world exposure

The science behind Air Aware Labs has its roots in Will’s academic work.

An air quality scientist and former Imperial College London postdoctoral researcher, Will’s research has examined emissions and the way pollution behaves in real-world environments.

During the podcast, Rose and Will explore some of the complexities that make air pollution a much bigger subject than simply measuring exhaust fumes.

These include indoor air pollution and the growing significance of non-tailpipe emissions from vehicles.

As transport electrifies, removing exhaust emissions does not mean removing every source of particulate pollution associated with road traffic. Tyre wear, road wear and braking remain relevant, while the weight of vehicles can also influence these sources.

It is one example of why improving air quality requires detailed data rather than assumptions about where pollution is coming from.

Indoor environments create another challenge. People spend significant amounts of time inside homes, offices and other buildings, yet personal exposure does not stop when someone walks through the front door.

Air Aware Labs therefore looks at the broader journey through somebody’s day, bringing together outdoor, indoor, travel and activity information to build a more personalised picture of exposure.

Turning air quality into a health insight

The conversation also looks at the potential for personalised environmental data to become part of healthcare.

For people living with respiratory conditions such as asthma or COPD, pollution can be an important trigger.

But a clinician looking at symptoms or health data may not automatically know what environmental conditions a patient encountered immediately beforehand.

Connecting hyperlocal exposure information with health information could help fill in part of that missing picture.

Air Aware Labs is developing clinical applications that give patients personalised environmental information while providing healthcare teams with broader insights that could help identify patterns and periods of increased risk.

Its AirTrack Ascent offering is designed around conditions including asthma, COPD and cardiovascular risk, combining personalised forecasts with clinical and predictive data.

It opens up an interesting possibility: instead of air quality being treated simply as background environmental information, it can become another relevant data point in understanding an individual’s health.

Bringing cleaner-air insights into the workplace

There is an enterprise application too.

Employers are increasingly looking at employee wellbeing, sustainable travel and their wider environmental impact. Air quality sits at the intersection of all three.

Through AirTrack Enterprise, organisations can give employees access to personalised air quality information and cleaner-route recommendations while receiving aggregated insights rather than tracking individual employee locations.

That means someone commuting into an office could potentially identify a less polluted walking or cycling route, or change the timing of their journey.

For employers, the technology creates another way of thinking about wellbeing and sustainability. Rather than sustainability targets existing solely at an organisational level, environmental information can potentially be translated into practical actions that benefit individual employees.

Air Aware Labs says its enterprise offering is designed to provide aggregated information while keeping individual location data private.

Taking air quality to the start line

Sport has become another fascinating proving ground for the technology.

During the episode, Will discusses Air Aware Labs’ work around major athletics events, where understanding air quality is particularly relevant because athletes can inhale considerably more air while exercising than when at rest.

The company worked with the 2026 TCS London Marathon, providing air-quality information along the route, including information for elite athletes and participants. It has also provided live air-quality data around the London Diamond League.

The principle is straightforward: athletes already monitor temperature, hydration, nutrition, pace and numerous other variables that can influence performance. Air quality is another environmental factor that can affect how the body responds.

For spectators and organisers, meanwhile, making pollution information visible creates an opportunity to build environmental awareness into the event itself.

It is a compelling demonstration of how sustainability technology can move beyond dashboards and reporting and become something people encounter and use in real time.

From air-quality app to environmental intelligence layer

Perhaps one of the most exciting parts of the conversation looks at where personalised environmental data could go next.

Air Aware Labs is expanding its technology through APIs that can allow other platforms and services to incorporate hyperlocal air-quality intelligence.

That creates possibilities far beyond a standalone air-quality application.

Fitness and health wearables, mobility platforms, employee wellbeing services, healthcare technology and other applications could potentially incorporate environmental exposure alongside the information they already collect.

The company’s current API provides hyperlocal air-quality information, forecasts and route optimisation designed for integration into external services.

Air Aware Labs has also been exploring the relationship between environmental exposure and data captured through wearables, raising the prospect that the air somebody breathes could become another piece of context around sleep, cardiovascular health, respiratory health, exercise and performance.

Further applications could extend into sustainability reporting, transport planning, environmental conservation and supply chains.

What starts as the simple question, “What am I actually breathing?”, could therefore develop into an entirely new layer of environmental intelligence.

Making the invisible visible

Throughout the discussion, Will makes the case for turning air pollution from something largely invisible into information people can understand and act upon.

Better data alone cannot eliminate air pollution.

But knowing how exposure changes according to location, activity, timing and behaviour gives individuals, employers, healthcare providers, sporting organisations and potentially entire cities more opportunities to make informed decisions.

Tune in to hear how Air Aware Labs is personalising air-quality information, why the pollution reading for an entire city may tell you surprisingly little about what you are actually breathing, and how environmental exposure data could become an increasingly important part of health, sustainability and enterprise technology.

Air Aware Labs was named the winner of the 2025 Sustainable Tech Trailblazers Award, recognising its innovative approach to personalised air-quality intelligence.

It was an exceptional year for the company at the Tech Trailblazers Awards. Air Aware Labs also won the 2025 Firestarter Trailblazers Award and was named runner-up in both the Big Data and Diversity categories.

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