Meiling Gao &
Vivian Bi

Meiling Gao and Vivian Bi from California, who jointly won the Women4Climate Tech Challenge 2020 with their initiative “Clarity”, a smart, indoor-outdoor low-cost air monitoring system that provides real-time air quality data. Their initiative will be implemented in the City of Losa Angeles. 

Clarity works on the preparation of extreme pollution events and protecting public health by using real-time indoor/outdoor air quality data. Clarity’s IoT-connected, low-cost air monitors, can be placed indoors and outdoors of buildings, such as offices or schools, to provide the real-time air quality data cities need to make improved decisions about how to best protect public health.

Meling Gao is the Chief Operating Officer at Clarity Movement Co, an environmental cleantech startup based in California USA. Clarity creates hardware and software technologies that make it easier to measure the air quality around us and use that data to make actionable insights. Clarity works with NGOs and the private and public sectors in over 20 countries around the world to find solutions to global air quality issues. Meiling has been motivated to work in this climate action effort because there are so many synergies across public health, air quality, and energy projects to help reach our climate goals. Prior to Clarity, Meiling conducted research on the health impacts of urban development in China and the climate and air quality impacts of agricultural intensification in Colombia. Meiling holds a PhD from University of California Berkeley School of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences, a MS from Harvard University in Environmental Health, and BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Vivian Bi is the Communications Lead at Clarity Movement Co. where she works on connecting the dots between environment, society, and technology and Clarity's role in it all to support cities in mitigating the burdens of air pollution. Clarity’s turn-key solution for real-time air quality data is helping governments expand their current monitoring efforts to hundreds of additional measurement points, providing high resolution insights to understand a city’s air pollution concerns. Vivian has always been interested in understanding how ideological values of nature and power interact to inform our governance of the environment and people. Before Clarity, Vivian built her background in environmental communications in the nonprofit space, working in environmental law, advocacy, and research organizations including Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, Global Footprint Network, and the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute. Vivian earned her BS in Society & Environment and BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.