Why open data?

UrbanReflex was founded on the principle that people have a right to know what they are breathing. We believe everyone should be able to freely access, use, reuse, and redistribute air quality data to make informed decisions about their health and environment.

Open data has many benefits, including innovation, collaboration and knowledge sharing, equity, improved decision-making, public oversight and accountability, reproducibility and scientific advancement, and efficiency.

Benefits of Open Data

• Innovation: When data are open, everyone – civil society, government, private sector, academia – can help solve key social challenges.
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing: Open data facilitates trust-building and knowledge exchange across organizational and geographical boundaries.
• Equity: Open data access enables marginalized communities to understand and address disparities in their favor.
• Improved decision-making: Citizens make better-informed choices when grounded in evidence rather than assumptions.
• Public oversight and accountability: Transparent government data allows citizens to monitor officials and hold them responsible for their actions.
• Reproducibility and scientific advancement: Open platforms enable verification of research methods and encourage new discoveries through shared data.
• Efficiency: Open data reduces the time and effort users spend locating and acquiring information.

UrbanReflex's Mission

UrbanReflex is an open-source smart city platform that unifies air quality monitoring, infrastructure management, and citizen reporting into a single, accessible system designed to support data-driven urban governance.

Despite the critical need for integrated urban data, many cities operate with fragmented systems that limit transparency and citizen engagement, leaving communities without the tools they need to advocate for improvements.

Anyone can use the UrbanReflex platform for free to access real-time environmental and infrastructure data, submit citizen reports, and leverage open data standards to advocate for increased monitoring, transparency, and evidence-based urban solutions.

How to Use UrbanReflex

Anyone can use the data platform or the UrbanReflex Explorer Tool for analysis, from basic interpretations to in-depth analyses using the API.

For organizations deploying air quality monitors, UrbanReflex can ingest and share the data from these projects on the UrbanReflex platform to ensure data is broadly accessible.

Learn More

We endorse the Open Data Charter principles and promote expanded air quality data accessibility. Learn more about the importance of open data and how it can drive positive change in communities worldwide.