Cambridge Mask Co™ was founded by Christopher Dobbing, a graduate of Cambridge University. After finishing his degree, Christopher moved to China in 2012, where he worked as an education consultant and studied Mandarin. Sadly, many of the talented young people he was working with had developed serious respiratory illnesses. While in Beijing interviewing students for summer programme applications,
he would ask “What do you think is the greatest challenge for China in the next decade?” the near universal answer was “air pollution”. Having grown up breathing the pure air of rural England, Christopher found it shocking that many of the children found it ‘normal’ to have a cough and carry an inhaler with them. He believes that no child should have to think like that. After researching academic publications, health studies, news sources and historical pollution data he began to realise the scale of the issue, a problem that was claiming the lives of literally millions of people around the world every year. A curiosity turned into a passion, which morphed into an obsession – better air. From 2013-2015 Christopher worked as the China Director for Vogmask, an American brand of pollution mask that he launched and grew into a national brand. In 2015 he left to set up his own business, focusing on his Cambridge roots. Every component of the mask* has been carefully sourced, with quality being at the forefront of every product development decision. Cambridge Mask Co has grown fast, and now has offices in UK, Beijing and Hong Kong and a client list including schools, hospitals and embassies. In 2016 we gained investment from Y Combinator (YC) via their Fellowship Programme. YC is the incubator behind Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit and many more. Together with the YC partners, the company is working on exciting technological developments that will change the way we think about clean air.
