Darren Riley: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Megan: Thank you ever so much for being with us. To get us started, let’s just talk a bit about JustAir. How did the idea for the company come about, and what does your company do as well?
Darren: Yeah, absolutely. The real thesis of JustAir, is really a combination of one, my personal experience but also my professional experience. On the professional side, background in software engineering, graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, but I was always fascinated by how to use technology to really support and innovate and really push the frontier on issues that are near and dear to my heart. Coming from Houston, Texas, coming from communities that often are restricted with certain issues, systemic issues, is something that I always carried in my heart.
And on the personal side, it was around seven years ago when I moved to Detroit, in Southwest Detroit, where I developed asthma. Not growing up with asthma and not developing any issues, having that disease of the lungs really opened my eyes to just how much our environment impacts our health and well-being.
The combination of those, that pain point and also my background in technology, I was fascinated about why we don’t have the data we need or why we don’t have the infrastructure to solve these issues, to understand where pollution is coming from, how it’s impacting our communities, so that we can solve these problems and make an equitable breathing environment for everybody. That’s kind of what birthed JustAir in a way.
And actually, it was around COVID-19 where we really started to push forward, where we saw all this information and research around health disparities and a lot of the issues of mortality rates around COVID-19, which kind of coincides with COPD, asthma, and other diseases that are often overburdened in communities that look like ours, in Black and brown communities. That’s kind of where we got our start.
And what is JustAir today? JustAir is solving the problem of how to better manage local pollution so that we can make sure our communities, our lifestyles—where we work, where we play, and where we learn—are really protected. And, so, what JustAir does is build hyper-local neighborhood-level air quality monitoring networks. Communities have access to the data, policymakers and decision-makers can use that data to really influence and push things to help protect the community, but also other stakeholders can use the data to move the environment to a healthier state. So that’s where we are, and we’re four years strong, and I’m really excited to be a part of this journey here in Michigan.
Megan: So you launched about four years ago now. Why did you choose to build and grow just there in Michigan?
Darren: Yeah, I think a combination of things, the reason why I chose to start here and be intentional about building our team here. I think first is really around the ecosystem support around Michigan. So the MEDC has a network of what we call SmartZones that really offer funding, resources, mentorship, advisory on the different challenges that can range from capital, legal, and other issues that kind of hold an entrepreneur from just getting out there and putting their product in the market. First and foremost, I’m super thankful and grateful for just the state really focusing on and putting entrepreneurs first in that regard.
I think secondly is community. I really felt a strong sense of community here in Detroit. One of the founding members of an organization called Black Tech Saturdays, which sees over hundreds, 500-1,000 folks almost every Saturday of the month, just really sharing and really engaging with tech-curious folks from all different walks of life, but making intentional space for folks who are often left out of those rooms and out of those conversations. And just really seeing a peer network of entrepreneurs who come from a similar cultural background or a similar situation, really going after it together and helping each other navigate some issues.
And then lastly, I talk about this a lot, but problem-solution fit. Being here in Detroit where I developed asthma, where we have many issues and many around the environment that have hit some communities the hardest, right here in Detroit in my own backyard I really want to be very narrowly focused and make sure that I’m building something that actually solves the problem that got me on this journey in the first place. Not thinking about regional-wide, different country, international, et cetera, but how do we build something right here in the backyard that solves the problem for my neighbors and makes sure that we can make a real difference in the community. So, from the community to the problem that I really care about and make sure we solve, and then also just the ecosystem support is why we’re here in Michigan and why we plan to really grow and really be a part of this movement.
