As this round of the Donation Program comes to a close, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated and supported the initiative. This has been our largest and most engaging program to date, with nearly four times the number of applications compared to previous rounds, and an incredible level of community interaction through likes, comments, and votes. We’ve been both surprised and deeply grateful for the enthusiasm and energy this round has generated. We’re already looking ahead with excitement to what future editions may bring.
A Note on Voting Integrity
Before we share the final results, we want to address an important matter regarding the voting process. Many of you noticed that vote counts were significantly higher than in past rounds, and several community members raised concerns about the potential for inflated or inauthentic votes. We take these concerns seriously, and in fact, we had similar reservations ourselves.
After a thorough investigation, we confirmed that a substantial number of fake community accounts were created solely to participate in the voting process. These accounts had no other activity beyond casting votes in the polls, and were largely generated using known spam email domains. We have since identified and removed these fraudulent votes from the final tally.
At this time, we believe we have successfully flagged all such accounts, and their influence on the outcome has been fully removed. The final results below reflect only what we believe to be legitimate, community-driven votes. Importantly, we found no conclusive link between any specific donation application and the fake accounts involved. Manual adjustments were made where appropriate, but in the interest of fairness, no further action will be taken for this round. Moving forward, we will implement enhanced security measures to prevent similar incidents in future programs. Additionally, in the case that a future instance of vote manipulation is explicitly linked to an application, that application will be disqualified immediately, and the submitter permanently banned from the community.
This behavior is deeply disappointing and goes against the values we as a company aim to uphold. We remain committed to maintaining a fair, transparent, and trustworthy process.
The Results
With that out of the way, congratulations to the top four applications, each of whom will be receiving sensors!
- Silvia Mardegan — Respira Amazônia Coalition
- Richard Muraya — The Demography Project
- Boudewijn Sterk — Smart Air Bangladesh
- Chris Hammond — The Shaghaf Team
Thank you once again to everyone who applied, voted, shared, and supported. We’re honored to help further your work and look forward to seeing the impact you’ll make!