High-tech environmental service PlanetWatch was not thrilled when the COVID-19 pandemic exploded in Europe . But , as a company pushing for better air quality across the world , they have used the past two years to amplify their message : clean air is a pressing global issue and , just because we can ’ t see it , does not mean it ’ s not there .
PlanetWatch decentralises and incentivises environmental monitoring by leveraging reliable yet affordable sensors writing data on the Algorand blockchain .
“ We are the only company in the blockchain world to be a spinoff of CERN . PlanetWatch has a strong collaboration with CERN and other big scientific players worldwide ,” says CEO Claudio Parrinello .
CERN is the leading physics research centre in the world , based in Geneva , the birthplace of the World Wide Web . PlanetWatch is based just across the border in Saint-Genis-Pouilly , France , and has a global outlook that mirrors Parrinello ’ s .
PlanetWatch ’ s technology Parrinello is a widely-travelled Italian national . He ’ s been doing research in the United States as well as in the UK – at the University of Liverpool and the University of Edinburgh – after getting a PhD in theoretical physics from the Italian institution Scuola Normale Superiore . The one constant in Parrinello ’ s life has been the taste for innovation , first on the science side , and later on , more on the technology and business side .
“ I ' ve always been trying to build bridges between industry and academia ,” he says . “ I ' ve been several things in my life . Until the end of the previous century , I was a researcher in theoretical physics . Then I moved to the Geneva region on the French
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