The air quality in Pittsburgh is ranked among the ten most polluted regions in the country, according to the American Lung Association. Standing on a high hill on a clear day, you can often see the haze-- but at street level, you don’t think about what it is doing to your lungs and heart. Two GWP members are playing an important role in making our air cleaner and educating the public about small particulate pollution. Thanks to funding from The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation, the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute helped to develop technology resulting in Speck, an air-quality monitor for home use. The foundations are also purchasing 1,000 Specks that will be distributed to schools and public libraries. Airviz, the company that is rolling out Speck, has recently received $2 million in investment from an international IT company and these units should become much more broadly available.