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New app helps Indonesians understand the air pollution around them
The locally made app aims to help people schedule their routines around fluctuations in air quality.
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Unhealthy everywhere: On May 25, almost all areas of Jakarta had unhealthy levels of air pollution. (JP/Vania Evan)
J
akarta and its satellite cities are so notorious for their air pollution that the public health issue has become a reluctantly accepted part of daily life for residents. While avoiding pollution altogether is impossible, a locally made app called Nafas (breathe) seeks to present easily accessible, real-time data to help people fit their lifestyle to their surroundings.
Nafas was launched in September 2020 by the company’s chief growth officer (CGO) Piotr Jakubowski, who cofounded the start-up alongside chief executive officer (CEO) Nathan Roestandy. Piotr had been the chief marketing officer of Gojek, while Nathan is also the CEO of wearable tech startup Zulu. Though the pair took a good deal of data on air quality in Greater Jakarta into account, the app was principally influenced by their own personal experiences.
Piotr had bought an air-quality monitor and had placed it in the backyard of his house in South Jakarta, which was surrounded by a relatively high number of trees and plants and was away from the main road. Still, the monitor showed a reading of 180 on the Air Quality Index (AQI) – the equivalent of smoking four cigarettes per day, according to the index.
"We learned that trees are good because they create oxygen, right? But the air quality in my backyard was worse than the air quality on Jl. Sudirman [the main road in the area], which is notoriously congested with passing vehicles," Piotr told The Jakarta Post.
