Dov Barkai: “Canario will be the Waze for air monitoring”
by Yehudit Haspel Ben-Dak
9 billion people breathe globally polluted air and about 400 hundred million people fight asthma and other respiratory diseases. About 20 million die every year from viral infection spread by respiratory droplets and about 100 million suffer skin diseases, cataracts and other eye diseases caused by UV radiation. Those critical problems have triggered numerous companies like Brizomete, IQAir, and ATMOtube to measure the increasingly horrible environment in which we live.
The Canario Air Pro system focuses on the individual on the go, being unique in capturing full data re-air quality working through the Information, and analyzing and adding inputs and outputs from the cloud. The instrument locates only those exposed to the instrument carrier at a distance of 2 meters, for 15 minutes while the device is alerted.
The system monitors proximity of less than 2 meters between Canario devices, while performing its on location tasks. This information from all devices is stored on the cloud. Customers get an online alert for aerosol droplets–which all too often predict the growing nest for pandemic, air pollution standards like AQI, and UV sun radiation. Thus, a simple instrument adds a differentiator to cope with the detection and adds localized and enriched base to regional and city awareness networks. Other systems detect outdoors and whole plants environments.
Canario, the Israeli newcomer to the field, offers indoor and outdoor assessment and creates an independent foundation for a global mapping based on GPS. The competition all too often needs to utilize missing local source data and Algorithmics. This complex challenge motivated a team of 16 Israeli scientists to pursue a readying responsive care to numerous allergens, bacteria and other components that presently do not meet the target areas of pollution networks elucidated by Key “destroyers” of environmental hazards like Klean and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The Canario team isn’t new to the medical device fields though. Dr. Dovik Barkai is a CEO of few other companies like Parameter Technologies, a provider of design, development and manufacturing of high technologies disciplines services as well CEO of Paramedical Devices Ltd. One of his earliest inventions was a special breastfeeding bra. “It was about 21 years ago when my twins were born, I saw how hard it was for my wife and formed a massage bra that triggers the production of a mother’s milk”.
Since his breastfeeding bra was designed, he went on into the medical device field and nowadays he is fully passionately wishing to become a CEO of conglomerate handling air quality worldwide with the two products, the Canario air pro and a wearable device for air pollution detector. “Canario is an advanced IoT/IIoT wearable, portable and stationary solution that monitors air quality”, emphasizes Dr. Barkai.
Barkai is proud to share the fact that Canario’s team is fully Israeli, including development and marketing people.”
Barkai’s professional team began about six months before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. “We started developing an air monitoring device due to severe asthma problems suffered by the daughter of the development manager of my company. We desired to make a portable device that would detect allergens that stimulate asthma symptoms. At the time I was about 300 Kilometer from Wuhan, in Wuhu, China, consulting to figure out a special device for the Cannabis industry.”
“I watched the hysteria on Chinese TV and saw everyone wearing masks. I told my crew, let’s reconsider a route and focus on the droplet’s detection in the air. I immediately added a virologist, biomathematician, and statistical biologist to identify the droplet pattern. I returned to Israel in January 2020 and immediately established a full professional team to accelerate the invention while registering the device for an American patent that is still pending.’’ Coincidently, that was exactly in November 2019 when the corona broke out.
ABC -Anything but China
You manufacture in China. There is huge tension between China and the US. How will you be dealing with this issue?
“Yes, we manufacture in China. There is a trend of change in other companies. Americans do not believe in the Chinese product even though our development is completely Israeli! In the Western world, there is an inclination of ABC – ANYTHING BUT CHINA. Therefore, we will most likely to produce in Israel and the United States.”
? So, ABC trend might derail your company from dealing with China
“Not evidently. We plan to penetrate the world market everywhere. Definitely, it would be easier in the US and Europe where the awareness of air quality is strong.”
What was the solidity in the development process?
“The main difficulty was finding pattern left by the droplets in the air that has not yet been studied. At first, of course, we conducted experiments under laboratory conditions, moved to the sea, to the street, indoors, sneezed, sprayed with sprays. We conducted thousands of experiments documented in protocols, statistics data.”
Was there a defining moment while doing the experiments? A breakthrough?
“Yes. When we reached 87% probability, reliability in identifying the repeated droplets. It was an uplifting feeling.”
What about your competitors? What is your advantage?
”We don’t execute tens or hundreds of mile distance algorithms measuring air pollution as it is practiced these days. We found the right resolution to accurately determine the level of pollution scattered worldwide with many more monitoring stations and masses of people using our wearable devices. For instance, today, if you sit in a coffee shop in Nahariya and wish to find out the air pollution, you will be getting analysis from the Shlomi monitoring station. It isn’t accurate. It is too far. In Israel, we have only 150 monitoring stations, and they provide only an estimate calculation through various algorithms.”
Is it possible to identify any virus around us?
“Not any virus and not any bacteria but we have been working now on an accurate algorithm to analyze new practices like harmful dust, mold and different bacteria. Our device doesn’t eliminate Covid-19 for instance but reduces the probability to get close to the infecting droplets by alerting us.
According to your description there will be lots of beeps and alerts? Isn’t it bothering?
“You’re right. Maybe unsettling. You can mute the app or alternate over the weekend to see places you have visited and get an air monitoring report that was during the week. It is also effective for the process of searching for an apartment, in a particular place that will be free of troubling contaminants.
The post-Corona era has made the issue of air pollution a very critical issue in the world as well as in Israel. Even the American president, Biden, in his speech in the first 100 days, raised the priority he gives to the war on air pollution. Definitely, The two most important things to a human being: air and water.”
However, your system will require you to build a massive amount of monitor stations
“Yes, in Israel we started in three cities: Rishon LeZion, Givatayim, and Tel Aviv. It’s going just fine. There is an accurate map growing steadily of air pollution.
Why not Haifa, which is prone to disaster?
”A difficult war awaits us there… Yes, there are also political considerations fighting air pollution….”
What about a dialogue with strong NGOs dealing with air pollution?
“We do have a cooperation with green and health NGO organizations. Here in Israel as “Shomrei Habaiet” and the war against cancer association”. We have been working to connect with other world green NGOs like Australian Asthma Society. We do have partnership with Sharie Tzedek hospital, the Ministry of Environmental protection, and the Health Ministry’s digital department.
In the future, there is a great potential for joint ventures with other air quality entities. I remind you that we deal with the monitoring process, not purification. For instance, we started a dialogue with Samsung’s air-conditioning unit. This conglomerate shows a great interest in integrating our system.”
Barkai indicates that Canario now manufactures the permanent monitoring station and has also started selling the wearable item in three cities in Israel and Australia, USA and Peru. “These customers will be our goodwill ambassadors.” he claims.”
Dr. Barkai fully believes in his breakthrough Canario products. “Our wearable item is already becoming part of the “wisdom of the masses” like WAZE. We’re going to be Waze of air quality. Our customers will be sharing information as well. There is no such similar innovation in the world, he asserts..
Your future vision?
”To be a global digital health company with the most relevant big data which provides B2B/b2c air monitoring indoor and outdoor to millions around the globe.”
