Two years ago, I started what has become one of my favorite annual traditions. Instead of a year-end column rounding up all the dubious and objectionable things technology companies did over the last year — a true fish-in-a-barrel assignment — I highlighted some examples of “good tech.” I wanted to give kudos to the kinds of tech projects that don’t always make headlines but that improve people’s lives in tangible ways.

I’ll admit, handing out awards for good technology in 2019 feels a little like congratulating Godzilla for not destroying all of Tokyo. There was plenty of bad tech news to write about this year: Facebook’s foibles, Amazon’s aggression, SoftBank’s stumbles. But to me, the tech industry’s very public shortfalls make celebrating its quieter successes even more important. The tech industry, after all, is not a monolith, and many engineers and entrepreneurs work on projects that help society. So here, with no further ado, are this year’s winners.

To OpenAQ, for educating us about the air we breathe.

Air pollution is a vastly underestimated problem. Polluted air is linked to one in eight deaths worldwide, and studies have shown that bad air quality can cause cognitive impairment in young people and increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly. But until recently, there was no good source of air quality data that researchers and activists could rely on.

Christa Hasenkopf, an atmospheric scientist, decided to fix that. She and a software developer started OpenAQ, an open-source platform that collects air quality data from governments and international organizations in a single place and makes it free and accessible. Want to know how the nitrogen dioxide levels in Hyderabad, India, compare with those in Kampala, Uganda? OpenAQ can tell you. Want to build an app that alerts people in your city when air quality dips below a healthy threshold? You can do that, too.