First Act Fund

We are proud to announce that we have been awarded $10,000 from the First Act Fund! Huge thank you to Coding it Forward & Schmidt Futures for providing the GUAQ team with this opportunity. We plan to use the funding to further our goal of deploying accessible air quality monitors around the world.

GUAQ was also featured on Coding it Forward’s blog post announcement of the Summer 2020 First Act Fund Grantees. An excerpt of the announcement is provided below. To view the full blog post, click here.

Announcing the First Act Fund Summer 2020 Grantees

These 15 grantees have innovative ideas that will change the world

This summer, the United States experienced a societal reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism and injustice, while the country and the wider world continued to suffer the consequences of a global pandemic.

Our team at Coding it Forward is cognizant that for too long, technology has not been a neutral tool and has been used — directly and indirectly — to uphold and sustain unjust systems. The First Act Fund was designed to empower young technologists to channel their problem-solving and entrepreneurial skills into creating products, tools, and services that actively contribute to creating a better world, and our most recent funding cycle could not have come at a more pivotal time.

We believe that this round of grantees — 15 in total, each led by a young person aged 24 or younger — offers hope in today’s world. With their skills and driven by their lived experiences, these grantees are addressing some of our greatest challenges and working to close longstanding gaps in criminal justice, education, economic opportunity, healthcare, and the environment.

Split into two tracks, each grantee is receiving no-strings-attached grant funding between $1,250 and $10,000 and support from the Coding it Forward and Schmidt Futures teams to help turn their ideas into reality. Earlier-stage grantees in the Blueprint Track will also participate in and benefit from four product development workshops about defining the problem, user research, prototyping, and iterating a solution.

Read about each of our 15 grantees below. Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing more from each grantee, in their own words—stay tuned to our social media (Twitter, Facebook)!

GUAQ

Globally Unified Air Quality (GUAQ) makes a powerful, low-cost, moderate to high resolution air quality monitoring device meant to empower individuals, researchers, and enterprises alike with the ability to detect and and measure an array of environmental hazards. The device and supporting software ecosystem solves the numerous problems with existing low-cost solutions and provides a platform for continually supporting and developing the product, as well as integrating with the global effort to measure and combat environmental afflictions. Providing the ability to collect data, along with resources to educate, is our first step in creating policy and social change in the context of air pollution. GUAQ’s team includes Georgetown University undergraduates studying computer science and business, all united by the impact of air pollution on each of their own lives.