CEO’s Office
Abstract:
As an active EMF researcher for more than a decade, I can say without any question that the current posture of governments and local authorities is lazy and there is a misunderstanding of the problem and how to deal with it in a realistic way without propagating the fear in the citizens and obstacle the deployment of new technologies. What to do? How can we articulate a standard approach to deal with this in local governments? What can be done and how? That’s the question! And we have an answer for that, let’s talk openly about it.
NOXTAK in the beginning was just a scientific project, it had the purpose of creating solutions that could help people improve their quality of life. But to achieve that, we had to reach higher institutions, such as governments, associations, and ONGs, willing to help citizens and improve our cities by committing to an electrosmog-free environment.
NOXTAK was founded on the Aruba island in 2012 by me (Joaquin Machado) and my wife Marianella Romero (engineer and specialist in EHS cases), in cooperation with a multidisciplinary team of specialists in the fields of health, telecommunications, and environment. Since the very beginning, our company was impulsed by an initiative that started by investigating environmental emissions and their progressive increase in the different scenarios and contexts of daily life and industries, near-field emissions, and far-field emissions, also known as background levels of radiation. Our approach was focused on researching and developing a technology that would allow the daily use of technologies without any risks to health and the environment.
But to focus on environmental assessment we traveled to over 12 countries and visited dozens of cities conducting EMF assessments outdoors and analyzing the different types of EMF exposure present in all the cities visited and we compared it with the current regulations in terms of protection from non-ionizing radiation. We gave out lectures in different countries and met with governmental organizations trying to understand what they do in terms of Electropollution or Electrosmog. None of the countries visited has an EMF section in the Environmental Department, Telecom Department, Energy Department, Urban Planning or Health Department. Any of these sections of any government was totally blind and ignoring the potential risks of the electromagnetic pollution in long terms and how can be a threat of public health crisis without precedents.
Most of the government’s visits adopted the easy approach to claim there is not enough evidence and for that reason there is no risk and not action is required from our side. In the practical informal conversations with some government officials, they acknowledged that they don’t have a clue of what to do with the regulations. It seems to us like a crisis or a lack of basic knowledge about the Non-Ionizing Radiation generated by human-made sources. There are scientific papers, current studies, preliminary alerts from WHO, FDA and other institutions, but they think it’s not important enough.
NOXTAK’s Plan for local governments
One of NOXTAK’s main priorities is to join governments and public organizations in creating safer and cleaner environments for the sake of everything and everyone, guaranteeing complete accessibility to those who are most affected when exposed, and avoiding future biological effects both in people and the environment.
NOXTAK is committed to working directly with B2G (Business to Government), to assist with products to develop smart, especially healthy, and sustainable cities and habitats. We collaborate with government offices in the formation and training of its technical staff on the entire subject of electro-pollution and on how to make effective assessments. We provide lectures, courses to train technicians to identify areas of high pollution that need to be neutralized with NOXTAK products.
We also assist governments with establishing regulations and laws that comply with the latest scientific research. Under the principle of precaution, we guarantee that, in a short term, we can create cities completely free of electro-pollution.
We can summarize our proposal in the following points:
- Build a Group of Educational Programs: for residents, students, children, police, firefighters, health employees, among others.
- Build an EMF Department or Section in the City to study, analyze and approve any future project from the Electropollution perspective following the ALARA Principle. At this point NOXTAK offers a special training program for government employees about the latest understandings in Electrosmog.
- Open P3A projects in the city to financially support the protection of all the citizens and ensure the complete accessibility to any individual suffering from Electro Hypersensitivity.
- Add to the goal of being a Smart City, be a Smart Sustainable City free of Electrosmog.
- Work in local regulations or laws to ensure that all urban planning goes through the EMF section first for approval or adjustments, avoiding near field industrial exposure for the most vulnerables citizens.
- Promote, collaborate, and endorse scientific research of EMF exposure.
- Promote the adoption of the EHE certification program from EFEIA for buildings, commercial stores, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, parks and others.
ALARA: the main principle to create cleaner and safer cities
During the last three decades, many studies have certified that non-ionizing radiation, the one emitted by human-made technologies, causes biological effects and has been considered carcinogenic. Based on the evidence, the ALARA principle should be considered as an acceptable measure to this type of radiation.
ALARA is an acronym used in radiation safety that stands for “As Low As Reasonably Achievable”, and is based on the minimization of radiation doses and limiting the release of radioactive materials into the environment by employing all “reasonable methods.” ALARA should definitely be an essential part of the creation of a new standard of friendlier and healthier technologies that contribute to cleaner and well-preserved cities. This is a decision that should be made by higher authorities, and there are enough knowledge and technologies to make this happen without affecting the functioning and purpose of mobile, wireless, electronic devices, and smart cities in general.
Governments and organizations should also keep in mind that even when the ALARA principle is applied, devices will still emit lower levels of radiation that can significantly affect biological systems such as citizens’ bodies and various ecosystems. In order to completely eliminate these emissions, we, at NOXTAK, propose to use filtering technologies, such as SPIRO, that makes artificial EMF behave the same way as the natural field produced by the earth.
Based on the ALARA principle and the idea of incorporating filtering technologies, EFEIA, a partner organization of NOXTAK, has created an EHE (Electro Healthy Environment) certification program for Smart Buildings, Green Constructions, and Clean Technologies. This is our value proposal and contribution to public servers and executive governments.
Our Aruba pilot project: a living monitoring laboratory
When NOXTAK was founded, Aruba functioned as a living laboratory that contained all the environmental conditions normally found in different urban contexts, and these conditions were used for an extensive study of electromagnetic pollution. This is how this island became the headquarters of its environmental scientific research pilot project, complemented by exploratory studies on its neighboring island Curacao.
We started a pilot project on January 15, 2013, and the first reference frame or base measurement was established defining the areas to be monitored and the different variables implicit in each of the 8 regions defined by the Central Bureau of Statistics of Aruba (www.cbs.aw). Since then, these values have been monitored, paying special attention to the update periods of the telecommunications platform on the island, from the change from 2G to 3G, then the update to 4G LTE, as well as observing the incidence in the increase in emissions in WiFi public areas.
Up to now, our pilot project has collected enough data, and we have been able to make special considerations on the incidence of Electromagnetic Radiation in environments such as urban, rural, and natural reserves. As well as determining the electromagnetic footprint of renewable energies, such as wind and solar parks.
For years, we have evaluated the levels of exposure in shops, industries, offices, residential areas, tourist areas, areas near mobile phone base stations, the Reina Beatrix airport, etc. Traveling more than 150 km2 of the island to monitor the increase in electromagnetic emissions with the implementation of new technologies.
GEMS and EFEIA: larger-scale projects aimed to achieve an electrosmog-free world
The creation of SPIRO made us understand there were better ways to continue using technologies without the need to block the waves and without risks to health or the environment, so we started working on bigger side projects aimed to help globally.
EFEIA is the Electrosmog Free Environments International Association, a non-profit association dedicated to creating a research platform for case studies and to generate a global census of electrohypersensitivity. In other words, it is an association that, in its own way, protects technologies and controls electrosmog under a non-blocking approach.
The purpose of this association is to promote an electrosmog-free world through the creation of electro-healthy spaces and technologies. We also want to protect from electrosmog the largest number of apiaries in the world in the shortest time possible and promote a global census of EHS (Electrohypersensitivity), as well as promote case studies of passive protection EHE (Electro-Healthy Environment) to people with EHS through of clean technologies certified EHD (Electro-Healthy Device).
On the other hand, GEMS is a system -software and hardware that has a patent approved by NOXTAK at the USPTO (United States Patent Trademark Office) – designed to create a global non-governmental platform that will be connected in real-time by monitoring Electromagnetic emission levels Indoors and Outdoors Quickly, Safely and Traceable, a technology that can scale and grow in complexity. It uses cutting-edge sensors for data collection and, besides, it also receives information from third-party allies. This specialized software is compatible with systems related to environmental monitoring and seeks global data integration.
After researching alternatives for Big Data encryption and protection based on blockchain technology, we will open the possibility of creating a multi-signature and multi-level platform for a wide range of commercial, scientific, and institutional allies. We will be able to monitor the maximum levels of exposure to non-ionizing radiation from telecommunications transmissions. Providing the collected information to local and national governments, telephone operators, and scientific institutions. GEMS could also help control interference in IoT systems and smart cities.
The purpose of GEMS is to do global monitoring of EMF emissions in a safe, traceable, and scalable way. We seek to achieve a permanent collection of electromagnetic measurement data in the environment from artificial sources to process the database and distribute it in a cryptographic (Blockchain) way that ensures transparency, precision, and incorruptibility of the collected data.
Joaquín Machado
CEO NOXTAK. EMF specialist and researcher. Advisor on green technologies, IoT, and smart cities.