Category Archives: Humanitarian Technologies

Joining the Swiss Institute of Technology at EPFL

Posted on April 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

The Swiss Institute of Technology at EPFL ranks in the Top 15 of tech institutes alongside MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Caltech, Cambridge, Oxford, ETH, and NTU. I’m excited to join this highly innovative and dynamic campus. The leadership position I’m taking on at EFPL is a newly created one that combines two equally engaging roles. I’ll get to focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, and robotics. More on my LinkedIn. 

EPFL Campus

I’m thrilled to join this prominent university given how life-changing my past campus experience has been. I’ve had the honor and privilege of studying at Stanford, Columbia, UC Berkeley, and The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. I’ve also been a fellow at MIT Solve and, in 2007-2009, co-founded/directed a new program at Harvard on next-generation humanitarian technologies. I’ve been working in Humanitarian Tech and Social Innovation ever since. 

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Today, robotics and autonomous systems powered by breakthroughs in AI stand to play an increasingly important role in society (understatement). At EFPL, I’ll double down on open innovation and next-generation robotics to help direct their positive impact in society. I’ll work with professors, entrepreneurs and post-docs in multiple fields and programs across EFPL and Switzerland. I’m also excited to help drive cross-sector collaboration, and learn from, support, and promote some of the leading research labs in the world. Indeed, Switzerland is home to numerous world-class robotics labs, not to mention a thriving robotics startup scene. 

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What’s more, I’ll get to co-create and launch a robotics association at a national scale with critical stakeholders in government, industry, academia, and the social impact sector. With an economy ranked as the most innovative in the world, this role is guaranteed to be an exciting, challenging, and instructive experience, with many insights to come; insights that may also be of value to colleagues in the drones and robotics ecosystems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. I’ll certainly be reaching out to them for their insights. So I’m pleased that my new role includes international outreach.

Enabling and accelerating local and national-level impact in the robotics space was a high priority of mine as Co-Founder and Executive Director of WeRobotics for 7+ years. With my former colleagues, I had the privilege of co-creating and enabling new robotics hubs in 40 countries with hundreds of entrepreneurs and changemakers and key partners in the Swiss and global robotics industry. This unique network of locally-led knowledge hubs, called Flying Labs, will always be one of my proudest (collective!) achievements. 

So, after working internationally for years, it’s time for me to work more locally: in the Swiss robotics ecosystem. Clearly, this ecosystem is an important enabler for the social impact sector globally as evidenced by the positive impact of Flying Labs worldwide. 

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I’ll also help to develop EPFL’s Masters and Ph.D. Program in Robotics, and may even get to teach again. I’d be keen to give talks on ethics and robotics and how to enable diversity, equity, and inclusion in the application of robotics in society, for example. So I’m thrilled that one of our upcoming experts’ meeting will focus on how tech and robotics can meet the needs and challenges of the blind and visually impaired. 

Per the job description, this new leadership position at the Swiss Institute of Technology also requires the ability to translate to various audiences, which is a passion of mine and many translational leaders. What’s more, the role calls for significant autonomy. I’m at my best when given generous amounts of autonomy in dynamic, multidisciplinary and rapid-learning environments.

In closing, three fun facts:

  • The majority of the 20+ engineers in the WeRobotics Engineering Team were EPFL graduates, including WeRobotics’ former Head of Engineering.
  • EPFL colleagues and I are organizing an experts’ meeting in Bern focused on medical cargo drones, one of the critical areas I led at WeRobotics. Bern was also where WeRobotics’ Engineering Lab was based.

I like it when life works out this way and unexpected threads of continuity, connectedness, and meaning weave together. There’s lots of good work to be done at EPFL, with some major new developments in the pipeline that will become public later this year. More importantly, EPFL’s core values resonate deeply with me: Equality and Diversity, Respect and Sustainability. So I’m excited to shift gears and call this world-class university my new home. 

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Posted in Drones/UAVs, Humanitarian Technologies, Robotics

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Moving on from WeRobotics, with Gratitude

Posted on February 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

CDA Photo 1

It is time for a new chapter of WeRobotics to begin. This next stretch of the journey must include more diverse executive leadership. I’m thus stepping down as Executive Director of WeRobotics.* I feel deeply about this personal and professional decision, and didn’t come to it lightly or quickly. Thankfully, the WeRobotics Board has given me their full backing. With this next step, we can continue to walk the talk on diversity, equity, inclusion, localization and shift the power. Equally importantly, this new chapter presents all Flying Labs with a positive opportunity to shape the governance of WeRobotics itself.

Flying Labs are independent, locally-led knowledge hubs that combine local leadership and expertise with emerging technologies to drive positive and sustainable social impact. They’re co-created with WeRobotics but hosted and run by locally-owned organizations, companies, and/or social enterprises. WeRobotics serves as the primary enabler of the Flying Labs Network. 

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I want to express my deepest gratitude to all of you who worked with us to expand the power of locally-led action over the past 7+ years. Together, we’ve significantly expanded the quality and quantity of locally-led opportunities across multiple sectors. We also built greater respect and more robust demand for local leadership, ownership, knowledge, and expertise. How? By co-creating and co-implementing a radical decentralization and localization model with a wide range of Flying Labs in nearly 40 countries. The collective impact of this model speaks for itself.

We’ve accomplished a lot together. I can’t list every single example here, so will just share a few key accomplishments that mean a lot to me given my values, interests, and direct contributions. While I was largely responsible for catalyzing, championing, and/or coordinating the efforts below, it took our outstanding and purpose-driven teammates at WeRobotics and across the Flying Labs Network to refine these efforts, improve and extend them, and to translate them into direct, meaningful impact. We also relied on strong external partners, donors, dedicated Board Members and phenomenal interns. This was a true team effort in every sense of the word. As we all know, the myth of the lone leader is pure fantasy. 

2015WeR

In 2015, one of my WeRobotics Co-Founders — Dr. Andrew Schroeder — and I launched the first-ever program dedicated to the locally-led use of drones for disaster management (AidRobotics). Together with many Flying Labs, we built the World Food Program’s (WFP) own institutional expertise in this space over multiple years. This included WeRobotics and Flying Labs leading half-a-dozen hands-on professional trainings for country teams in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, not to mention with other UN agencies, from Malawi to the Maldives. Since then, Flying Labs have led their own trainings and operational deployments in response to a wide range of disasters across the globe. What’s more, we were amongst the first to apply machine learning and AI to automate the analysis of drone imagery (building on earlier work done at QCRI). I also launched a professional, peer-reviewed online training on the use of drones in humanitarian action, the only course of its kind. 

AidRobotics was our foundational and single most active program during the first critical years of WeRobotics. In fact, this program played an instrumental role in defining WeRobotics’ values, model and mission. So it’s worth expanding on this. AidRobotics was strongly influenced by UAViators, a global professional network and community of practice I founded in 2013 with an explicit focus on localization, ethics, and best practices. In fact, the initial decentralization idea of Flying Labs actually originated from UAViators. This also explains why Nepal Flying Labs (the first Flying Labs) predates WeRobotics by well over a year, and why the first Flying Labs projects were implemented in partnership with UAViators. Our joint learnings in Nepal later informed the launch of this digital solution to coordinate drone flights in disasters.

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In fact, the entire AidRobotics Program — including the Code of Conduct, training expertise, and our deployment experience — was a direct spinoff from the open collaborations at the heart of the UAViators community. We brought to WeRobotics our strong interest in localization and locally-led action thanks to this early operational and policy engagement. We also brought our core values and a strong commitment to decentralization and locally-led action. See the section “From UAViators to WeRobotics” in this peer-reviewed publication.

The foundational work through UAViators served to catalyze the co-creation of the Flying Labs Network, which has successfully expanded the space for locally-led action in the use of emerging technologies for social impact. So the Flying Labs Network feels like the pinnacle of a long journey from when I first began working on localization and people-centered projects in 2006, within the context of early warning and response systems in humanitarian emergencies. On the tech side, I’ve been working in humanitarian technology since co-founding and co-directing the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s (HHI) Program on Crisis Mapping in 2007. The first time I wrote about the use of drones in humanitarian action was in 2008.

2016WeR

In 2016, we teamed up with Peru Flying Labs to launch the first-ever program dedicated to the locally-led use of drones for medical delivery (HealthRobotics). Peru Flying Labs initiated this program through an explicit request to explore the possibilities of medical drone delivery in the Amazon Rainforest. To date, WeRobotics and several different Flying Labs have carried out more locally-driven drone delivery trainings and projects in more countries than any other organization or company thanks to our strategic partnerships with WHO, the CDC, Gates Foundation, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and BD, along with multiple Ministries of Health, hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, and patients in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. Furthermore, we made drone delivery far more accessible than any other organization. 

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What’s more, thanks to the leadership of Flying Labs, we were the first to enable locally-led cargo drone deliveries in Peru, Dominican Republic, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, and the Philippines, among others. We also enabled large-scale locally-led deliveries in Madagascar. To share our learnings, I launched a professional, peer-reviewed online training on using cargo drones in health. This is still the only ongoing course of its kind. Like the AidRobotics course, it was peer-reviewed by MIT, UPenn and Direct Relief experts.  

2017WeR

In 2017, we collectively launched and grew our dedicated engineering team to make cargo drones far more accessible to Flying Labs, and to offer Flying Labs both in-house add-on technology to use drones in a broader range of social good applications. The purpose of doing so was to enable Flying Labs to become first-movers in their own countries, as opposed to foreign companies and consultants who often parachute in with little local knowledge or interest in local ownership. 

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Our engineering expertise enabled both WeRobotics and Flying Labs to explore novel drone applications, including the precision release of beneficial mosquitoes to eliminate Dengue and Zika; Ladybugs to protect pecan trees and Mangrove seeds for climate change mitigation. The level of expertise needed to design and build these autonomous and drone-optimized release systems was considerable. Some members of the WeRobotics engineering team have since created a spinoff (formerly called Release Labs) to pursue related opportunities in the social impact space. I’m proud to have played a long and instrumental role in incubating this climate tech startup.

2018WeR

In 2018, we fully democratized the Flying Labs Network, enabling qualified local organizations worldwide to join the Network. We co-created a localization model with all the required guidelines and governance mechanisms to respond to the priorities and interests of local organizations. This development was important to me because of my strong interest in locally-led action and decentralization prior to WeRobotics. Fellow Co-Founder Andrew hasn’t received enough public credit for helping to shape this democratization and decentralization model, which paved the way for the Flying Labs Network to become a social movement dedicated to The Power of Local. This model ultimately enabled the Network to grow from three Flying Labs in 2018 to nearly 40 in 2023 (despite the devastating multi-year pandemic in between). You can read more about the model and its applications to other sectors here. Another proud accomplishment of 2018 was the launch of our Online Training Academy!

2019WeR

In 2019, we launched a new dedicated program to engage youth directly (YouthRobotics). WeRobotics and Flying Labs were the first to carry out hands-on youth trainings and projects in dozens of countries. These locally-led projects included aerial, terrestrial, and marine robotics. I initially took the lead in this program and secured our first funding for STEM projects. Together with multiple colleagues, we subsequently had the opportunity to co-implement these first activities in the South Pacific. This opened the door for many STEM projects that followed. As part of the YouthRobotics Program, we also teamed up with Flying Labs to co-create the first-ever picture book for children that is explicitly geared towards the importance of local knowledge, leadership, and ownership when it comes to the use of emerging technologies for social good projects. There are plans to turn this into a book series with Flying Labs.

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It’s worth noting that the three most active and impactful operational programs at WeRobotics over the past 7+ years have been the AidRobotics, HealthRobotics, and YouthRobotics Programs. This is all thanks to the dedicated WeRobotics and Flying Labs Teams who took these programs to the next level. There are many more accomplishments to write about within each of these three programs, so perhaps another book is in order! 

2020WeR

In 2020, with the COVID outbreak, I led the launch of this dedicated campaign to directly inform the appropriate use of drone technology in response to the pandemic. That same year, following our public commitment to anti-racism, I catalyzed our efforts to diversify our Board, shift our communications strategy and make the WeRobotics Team more inclusive. I’m very proud that we successfully accomplished each of the goals in our public commitment thanks to a huge team effort. I later led the launch of this shift-the-power series to document our concrete steps in shifting power with local organizations. All these efforts were central to our organizational transformation. In addition, we launched the Flying Council with Flying Labs to accelerate our Stopping-as-Success explorations. I’m a western white male who works hard to understand and reflect on my privileged role and how to transform individually. This position of power can have an impact on organizations, including WeRobotics and Flying Labs. I recognize that shifting the power is a continuous and hard-fought journey, and still have a lot to learn.

2021WeR

In 2021, we teamed up with multiple Flying Labs to fully document our joint localization and shift-the-power model, which we first began co-creating with Flying Labs in 2018. Why? Because the model was simply not getting enough visibility in policy circles, or influencing mainstream discussions on localization. We also wanted to make the model more accessible for others to adapt and adopt. So I took the lead from the WeRobotics side by working closely with many Flying Labs. As always, their insights were considerable and their input invaluable. The applied research and writing took over five months. Once completed, we launched this detailed report on our decentralization model at the Skoll World Forum to demonstrate and explain the model’s success. CDA Photo 2 - LocRep

The co-creation of this model will undoubtedly remain one of my proudest accomplishments at WeRobotics. We also used the high-profile Skoll event to formally launch the Power Footprint Project, which I’m also very passionate about. And we fully updated our Shift-the-Power strategy, along with the impact pages of WeRobotics and Flying Labs. 

2022WeR

In 2022, following another successful independent audit, we publicly confirmed that in 2021, WeRobotics transferred 42% of its own revenue and funding to local organizations. The industry average in the humanitarian and development space is typically 2-3%. This makes us one of the few international nonprofit organizations worldwide to accomplish such high levels of equity. We did this by walking the talk; by using our co-created localization model that clearly places local organizations first, along with local leadership, ownership, and expertise. In 2022, we also launched this dedicated call for the Power Footprint Project. The Board is exploring how best to move this project forward. 

During the second half of 2022, I worked closely with colleagues to initiate necessary organizational improvements in terms of Board oversight, governance, decision-making, executive performance reviews, accountability mechanisms, and more. I proactively reached out to the Board on this, working directly with them — and with the Head of Human Resources and Head of Finance — to ensure that WeRobotics stands on solid institutional foundations for the future. This essential work took up 120% of my own time between June and October 2022; groundwork that should enable WeRobotics to be more in line with institutional best practices in 2023. These organizational improvements are among the most important contributions I’ve made at WeRobotics. Leading a transformation agenda can be complex and result in burnout.

On the funding front, we successfully secured support from innovative partners who strongly believed in our mission throughout the years. This includes — but is certainly not limited to — The Rockefeller Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Gates Foundation, Autodesk Foundation, Jansen Foundation, Atlassian Foundation, Fondation Botnar, Omidyar Network, Twilio Foundation, PagerDuty, MIT Solve, multiple United Nations Agencies, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), USAID, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), BD, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and more. 

There’s definitely a lot more that I’m proud of, such as our 100% success rate in passing all of our rigorous and independent audits; the many technology partnerships we’ve secured; leading our expansion into both marine robotics and terrestrial robotics; the Social Ripples systems change project; and our new and improved impact monitoring framework. Not to mention many other essential accomplishments that I wasn’t involved in, such as locally-led drone certification courses, WeShare — our knowledge sharing platform built with Flying Labs; the Labs’ Global Model; the launch of Labs Use-Cases; and many more projects featured on the WeRobotics and Flying Labs blogs, and in our Annual Reports.

To conclude, the most crucial point to take away is this: the enormous team efforts across both WeRobotics and the Flying Labs Network made all the above accomplishments possible and successful. 

2023WeR

I’m excited about the next chapter of WeRobotics and Flying Labs. The Flying Labs Network is expected to grow to well over 40 Flying Labs in 2023. There simply is no other network quite like this one. Flying Labs are already training each other and implementing joint projects with each other. This trend will increase substantially, resulting in even more network effects. As I remind all my Flying Labs colleagues during our retreats over the years: “You are each other’s single best resource!” 

Whoever becomes the next Executive Director of WeRobotics matters a lot to Flying Labs. So the WeRobotics Board will reach out to all Labs to invite their nominations for strong leadership candidates who are fully committed to our core values. This new chapter is a big positive opportunity for Flying Labs to shape the governance of WeRobotics itself. While change is never easy, the benefits are clear. The significant value-add of greater diversity in team leadership is very well proven. More diverse leadership at WeRobotics will also enable Flying Labs to gain greater access to new funding opportunities.

And don’t forget that WeRobotics has a strong Alumni Network! For example, Joseph (former Head of Drone Data and Systems); Jürg (former Head of Engineering); Seb (former Lead Engineer), and also Cameron (former Lead Engineer), amongst others, all joined the Alumni Network in the past 10 months. What’s more, the Head of HR is joining the network in the coming months, as is the Head of Finance. So WeRobotics has top-notch alumni to draw on. In fact, several alumni have already supported multiple colleagues at Flying Labs and WeRobotics. I pledge to do the same. 

When the time is right, I’ll publish a blog post to share the most important professional and personal insights I’ve gained while at WeRobotics, along with the most important lessons learned as executive director during the past 7+ years. This will include my first-hand experience and lessons learned working with a Board. I hope that sharing my learnings will be of value to others. It is essential to me that we live up to our core values externally and internally. 

It was an incredible honor and privilege to serve as the official director of this organization.* What I’ll miss the most is my dear colleagues at WeRobotics and Flying Labs; their compassion, kindness, brilliance, dedication and humor. We laughed a lot during our recent Flying Labs Retreat in Nairobi, and we cried (happy tears of gratitude), shared meals, sang, listened to powerful poetry, and even danced. It was good for the soul, as were the many in-person hugs and the energy, inspiration, determination, and brilliance that Flying Labs colleagues brought to the many discussions. I’ll miss this Flying Labs magic, the Power of Local. So I look forward to following their good work.

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In sum, I am deeply grateful to everyone who made the above contributions possible and more impactful. You all know who you are. You were there, time and time again, to expand the space for locally-led action. I’ll be forever grateful to you. Lastly, and equally importantly, I want to explicitly recognize and thank each of my colleagues for their proudest accomplishments at WeRobotics and across the Flying Labs Network. Keep shining!

Per Aspera ad Astra.
Through adversity to the stars.

* The WeRobotics Board of Directors did not approve the Co-CEO titles, which is why I’m using the approved title of ED.

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Posted in Big Data, Crisis Mapping, Disaster Resilience, Drones/UAVs, Humanitarian Technologies, Robotics

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Drones and the Coronavirus: Do these applications make any sense?

Posted on April 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

Want to use drones in response to COVID-19? Then read this previous post to inform your decision-making. I also published this follow-up post to suggest that drones may add more value later in adjacent crises. I wrote these posts to encourage more critical thinking around the use of drones in response to the pandemic. I don’t have all the answers, of course, but we do have questions on some of the applications that several drone companies and other organizations are promoting. The figure below from Drone Industry Insights (DRONEII) does a great job collating what we’ve come across in recent weeks.

The applications proposed under “Delivering Essential Goods and Services” on the right-hand side are already mature applications that existed years before the pandemic. The applications under “Battling the Spread of the Virus” are somewhat more novel. We thus welcome input on those specific applications. We’d be especially grateful for any additional evidence there may be to evaluate the effectiveness of these applications better.

Spraying

It appears there is little to no evidence that outdoor spraying of disinfectants or other substances (by hand or by drone) has any impact on reducing the transmission of the novel coronavirus. On the contrary, this fumigation could create public health problems and add to environmental pollution. As The Lancet Journal on Infectious Diseases clearly noted on March 5, 2020, “air disinfection of cities and communities is not known to be effective for disease control and needs to be stopped. The widespread practice of spraying disinfectant and alcohol in the sky, on roads, vehicles, and personnel has no value; moreover, large quantities of alcohol and disinfectant are potentially harmful to humans and should be avoided.” While some have suggested that outdoor spraying may help reassure local communities that the government is in control and responding, could this potentially create a false sense of safety and thus dis-incentivize physical distancing? On the other hand, the emotional reassurance and peace of mind that the spraying gives can provide crucial psychological relief, which is key to resilience. Others have suggested that the spray can keep rodents away. But thus far, only one preliminary study has been carried out, which suggests that cats and ferrets are more susceptible to being infected by COVID-19 than dogs, pigs, chickens, and ducks. We have not found any scientific studies thus far that assess the transmission of the novel coronavirus from ferrets or cats to human beings. Indoor spraying is a different question. It remains to be seen whether aerial or ground robots can be more effective at indoor spraying compared to more conventional means. Does the use of drones in this case save time? Does it save on costs? Is the technology readily available?

Temperature scanning

It is unclear how valid, reliable, or cost-effective the current technology is for very high-resolution remote scanning at a distance. For example, can relatively affordable sensors distinguish between a body temperature of 37.2C and 38.0C from 50 meters away, let alone 100 meters? The same may also be true for those proposals that aim to use drones for automated remote cough detection. In any event, not everyone displays these symptoms right away. And even if the technology does work superbly well, then what? For example, someone with a high fever and cough walks down an alleyway and is automatically spotted by a drone that detects fever and a cough. Now what? It’s rather easy to get away from a drone in an urban environment.

Audio broadcasting

We hear mixed results in the use of loudspeakers on drones to encourage physical distancing and staying home. In some of the video footage we’ve seen, it appears that those who hear these warnings from the sky don’t actually change their behaviors. Others take videos of the drones with their smartphones but otherwise go on as before. That being said, we hear from our colleagues at India Flying Labs that this application of drones has been relatively effective in certain parts of India, and that many police chiefs are actively asking for drones with loudspeakers to carry out their public awareness efforts. The messaging itself needs to be carefully crafted to maximize the potential for behavior change. Just repeating the same messages over and over, “stay home, keep your distance,” may not be very useful since many have already heard these same messages from other sources. First, the messaging should be used to offer an information service, i.e., to provide “news you can use” to local communities; to be an authoritative source of information. Second, the messaging itself must be crafted in such a way that it resonates at a hyper-local level, draw on specific local customs and local traditions, and/or have local celebrities do the messaging. Either way, crafting different messages for different age-groups and/or separate messages for men and women are good practice. Over in Tunisia, it is unclear whether this ground robot (equipped with a camera, thermal sensor, loudspeaker, and microphone) is very effective. Why not merely use a police car with similar sensors?

Cargo delivery

Using cargo drones to deliver essential medicines and to collect patient samples for COVID-19 testing is being widely promoted. Anyone who has been involved in setting up cargo drones operations knows that doing so can take a significant amount of time. Also, the local availability of reliable and affordable cargo drones, let alone trained cargo drone pilots, is likely to be limited. So the rapid deployment of new cargo drone projects in response to the pandemic is expected to face several significant constraints. That being said, for cargo drone projects that are currently (or recently) operational, these can be more easily ramped up or repurposed to support the pandemic response. Foreign drone companies with significant resources and experience may be able to set up new cargo drone services in new countries. Even then, however, if the relevant medicines to help treat COVID symptoms are not available, or if insufficient tests are available to test for the virus, then there’s no point flying any drones. That being said, there are of course other needs for medical deliveries. We hear from Panama Flying Labs that the lock-down there restricts movement based on the ID number on your national ID card. Everyone is assigned a specific window of time when they can leave their homes for essential reasons based on their ID numbers. This poses a major challenge to those suffering from chronic illnesses who need their medications refilled on a regular basis. So Panama Flying Labs has been asked to look into possible cargo drone solutions to address this problem. It remains to be seen whether doing so will be logistically feasible and whether using cargo drones will add value compared to traditional delivery methods.

Surveillance

Drones can enhance situational awareness. This explains why many have advocated for the use of drones to help enforce lock-downs, sanitary cordons, curfews, and border crossings. While this may be a relatively more effective use of drone technology in response to the pandemic, it does raise serious concerns about data privacy and data protection. These concerns are rarely addressed by those advocating for drone-based surveillance. At the same time, there are increasing concerns that many governments are taking advantage of the pandemic to impose harsher surveillance measures that may persist well beyond the end of the pandemic. We’ve also seen multiple photos of drone experts huddled together with police and other government officials to show them the live feed from their drones overhead. This does not qualify as physical distancing.

To be clear, we are not public health experts ourselves (although several leaders of Flying Labs are medical doctors). The evidence that exists on the value-added of some of the above applications is particularly thin, which means that further evidence may well make these applications far more compelling. It should also be noted that when governments and local authorities instruct local drone experts to spray disinfectants to contain COVID-19, for example, these local experts may have no choice. This may also be true for some of the other applications listed above. That being said, at the very least, it is our collective responsibility to inform these authorities about the expected added value of some of these applications.

What is important is that we keep learning at a rapid pace and take in all new forms of evidence to review the uses of drones in response to the pandemic. This doesn’t mean that drones cannot play a decisive role in supporting the response to COVID-19; it simply means that more critical thinking is necessary before launching yet another drone project to tackle the pandemic. While drones may not add as much value as we’d like in the current phase of the global health emergency, this may change soon. Either way, we’ll be sure to continue working with and learning from Flying Labs to document what works and what doesn’t work to the best of our abilities. In the meantime, we’re fans of what Nepal Flying Labs is doing in response to the pandemic. Given the drastic reduction in air traffic around the capital city, the municipalities in Kathmandu Valley finally have a chance to secure flight permissions from the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority, so that Nepal Flying Labs and partners can use their drones to create high-resolution maps of the vast area (pictured above). These very detailed maps have long been needed to inform urban planning projects led by the municipalities.

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Posted in Drones/UAVs, Humanitarian Technologies, Robotics

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WeRobotics for Humans in a Hurry

Posted on February 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

We need to be better at communicating what WeRobotics is (and isn’t) to fellow humans. We can’t expect everyone to have the time to read through most of these blog posts and somehow immediately understand the big picture. We are keen to share more about our community, culture, and methodology. The FAQ below is a way to share more about our work. We are learning as we build. Feel free to share this post with anyone who might benefit from more clarity. It’s a quick 3 minute read. 

Is WeRobotics a for-profit company?

WeRobotics is a registered not-for-profit in the US and a tax-exempt organization in Switzerland.

Are Flying Labs for-profit companies?

Flying Labs are coordinated by local not-for-profit organizations and/or local companies. 

What is the difference between Flying Labs and WeRobotics Labs?

There are no such things as WeRobotics Labs.

Flying Labs are independently organized centers of expertise that are coordinated by local experts pin the Global South. Calling them WeRobotics Labs instead of Flying Labs might suggest they are staffed and managed by WeRobotics and belong to WeRobotics. Flying Labs are not staffed or managed by WeRobotics and are not owned by WeRobotics. Furthermore, calling them WeRobotics Labs would be disrespectful as doing so would take attention away from local experts who run their Flying Labs. Calling them WeRobotics Labs would directly undermine everyone’s efforts. 

Is FlyingLabs.org its own legal entity?

We’re using WeRobotics to co-create an independent international organization deeply rooted in the Global South and run entirely by leaders from the Global South. This has been our goal from the very start. As a first step, we are co-creating a network of country-level Flying Labs across Africa, Asia and Latin America. The second step is to secure systems change funding to co-create FlyingLabs.org as its own legal entity with its own leadership selected from and by country-level Flying Labs. We have already developed a concrete, 5-year plan and budget to launch FlyingLabs.org as its own independent entity.

What happens to WeRobotics after FlyingLabs.org becomes its own organization?

FlyingLabs.org may want to hire WeRobotics for certain projects or roles as needed. In addition, WeRobotics will offer new consulting services such as enabling other organizations to adopt the “Flying Labs Formula” at scale. Consulting projects represent around 30% of our revenue today. We will continue to grow this revenue stream to 80% of total revenue by the time FlyingLabs.org becomes its own legal entity. The remaining 20% will be grant funding to cover core.

What do you mean by “decolonizing technology for good”?

In this recent blog post, we talk about “the colonization of the public sphere through the use of instrumental technical rationality. In this sphere, complex social problems are reduced to technical questions, effectively removing the plurality of contending perspectives.” By advocating for the “decolonization of technology for good” we advocate against the reduction of complex social problems into technical problems. Equally importantly, we advocate for restoring the plurality of contending perspectives. In our case, this means strongly advocating for the Power of Local.

Decolonization is a rather loaded word.

Is that question or comment? Just kidding. Yes, decolonization is a loaded term. We discussed this at length with Flying Labs during last year’s retreat. We use the word decolonization selectively to call more attention to power dynamics, especially (but not exclusively) in the “Technology for Good” space. This may come as a surprise to some since WeRobotics co-founders are from the Global North. Thing is, we feel strongly that those with privilege have a particular responsibility to listen and call out these power dynamics where they can. This is about solidarity, which is one of our core values along with inclusion, diversity, autonomy, humanity, humility and sharing. 

Are Flying Labs independent?

Yes: We are an open network with a federated model. Hierarchy is not part of our formal culture. We co-create in an open way. As such, Flying Labs conduct their own affairs and make their own decisions. They select their own projects and partners. They run their own meetings and their own finances. They develop their own value propositions, governance models, business models and services. They write their own blog posts and many are also engaged on multiple social media platforms. WeRobotics does not have password access to any of these platforms. It should be noted that 90% of blog posts hosted on the Flying Labs blog and WeRobotics blog are about Flying Labs and published by Flying Labs. In addition, 95% of all photos and videos in these blog posts are of Flying Labs, not WeRobotics. We work hard to amplify the voices of local experts across the Flying Labs network. Furthermore, Labs do their own media interviews and also decide which conferences and workshops they want to organize or speak at.*

No: Flying Labs must follow local, national and international laws. This includes relevant aviation regulations and our Child Protection Policy, for example. In addition, Flying Labs must follow this Code of Conduct and these Flying Labs Guidelines (PDF). 

*When WeRobotics receives an invitation to speak at a conference, we transfer the invitation to Flying Labs whenever possible. This has given Flying Labs the opportunity to give presentations and keynotes in Malaysia, Japan, Dubai, Australia, Jamaica and Kenya, for example. We do the same when receiving requests for media interviews. Helping to amplify the voices of local experts is important to us.

Does WeRobotics own the data (and metadata) collected by Flying Labs?

No, Flying Labs and/or their clients own the data and metadata collected by Flying Labs. WeRobotics does not own or monetize the data or metadata collected by Flying Labs. 

Do Flying Labs pay fees to WeRobotics?

Yes, Flying Labs make annual contributions to the Flying Labs Fund. These mandatory contributions range from USD 250 to $750 depending on the type of organization that coordinates any given Flying Labs. Note that 100% of the annual contributions go directly to the Flying Labs Fund and that 100% of the Flying Labs Fund goes right back to the Flying Labs in the form of micro-grants, subsidized travel, free software, free training, retreats and more. WeRobotics does not take commissions.

Is the Flying Labs model based on a franchise model?

We frequently describe the Affiliate Flying Labs Program as being based on a franchise model. But this is simply a means to express affiliation. There’s no ownership in our case, so we ought to use a different word to describe the Affiliate Program. “Cooperative model” may be more accurate.

Is WeRobotics perfect?

LOL.

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Technology for Good is Broken. Here’s How We’re Trying to Fix It.

Posted on February 19, 2020 | Leave a comment

In Toward a Rational Society (1970), the philosopher Jürgen Habermas describes “the colonization of the public sphere through the use of instrumental technical rationality. In this sphere, complex social problems are reduced to technical questions, effectively removing the plurality of contending perspectives.” This explains why today’s social problems are “addressed only in aspects that are susceptible to technical solutions” (Heijmans 2004). Yet the problems we’re facing are never just technical problems, which means that the solutions to these problems cannot be technical ones alone. Solutions must be social, inclusive, plural, and diverse.

This begs the question: why name our organization WeRobotics? For better and worse, referencing an emerging technology in the name of an organization creates more visibility.

It’s safe to say that our work with Flying Labs has garnered more attention about inequality through technology than it might have if we were an organization about inequality alone (c.f. Adebe et al. 2020). As Adebe and team rightly note, technology can “offer us a tractable focus through which to notice anew and bring renewed attention to old problems.” While the core focus of our work is very much on the broader problems of inequality, injustice, racism, discrimination, and the digital divide, framing these problems in part as a technology problem can help leverage resources and attention that might not accrue otherwise (Adebe et al. 2020).

But this is a double-edged sword. “The significant risk, of course, is that a focus on the technological aspects of a problem can restrict our attention to merely those aspects. A computing [or technology] lens can have the effect of masking and pulling political capital away from other and more insidious facets of a problem, as well as other (non-technical) means of addressing it” (Adebe et al. 2020). So for the “Technology for Good” sector, what happens when we fail to recognize this risk?

The “Technology for Good” sector is broken because technology alone is not the solution. The sector ought to be rebranded as “Not the Solution for Good” since it mostly fails to address deeper patterns of injustice and inequality.

The “Technology for Good” sector is broken because technology alone is not the solution. The sector ought to be rebranded as “Not the Solution for Good” since it mostly fails to address deeper patterns of injustice and inequality. Whenever you read the claim “X for Good” (where X = some technology), for example, you should immediately question the claim by asking:

  • Who is using that X;
  • Who defines what “good” is;
  • Who benefits from the use of X; and
  • Where is this X being used?

In our case, the ‘where’ is the Global South, yet the ‘who’ is almost always the same: technologists from the Global North.

Tech4Good

If Habermas were still writing today, he might refer to these technologists as “unwilling colonizers.” Why unwilling? Because technologists in the Global North are part of a broken political, economic, and social system that colonizes the public sphere through the use of technical rationality. Many of them are as much a product of this system as they are a victim of said system. Many recognize full well that the system is broken, which explains why they “love to see all the discourse around ethics in tech.” But at the same time, they note that “calling out tech workers who are just trying to earn an income and raise their kids for not caring enough about ethics leaves a bad taste in [their] mouth.” These self-aware technologists from the Global North must be included in the collective effort to fix the “Technology for Good” sector.

This, too, though, poses a risk as most technologists from the Global North are often not self-aware and thus look at problems in the Global South through the lens of technology alone. In doing so, they inevitably silence the plurality of perspectives. This paternalistic approach explains why “technology for good” projects in the Global South are often ineffective, unsustainable, and, at times, even harmful. To this end, and to paraphrase Adebe and team, a synecdochal focus on technology must walk a pragmatic—and tenuous—line between overemphasis on technical aspects, on the one hand, and due recognition of the work technology does to reinforce social systems, on the other.

Luckily, we do not have to walk this fine line alone.

Flying Labs in 25+ countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America are kindly guiding us and each other along the way. They have local expertise and local knowledge. They understand local contexts and local needs. They are the plurality of perspectives needed to decolonize the public sphere and bring about systems change. They know that inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity are not synonyms for justice or equality. These values must be complemented with actual structural transformation; for without such transformation, these values will bring those who were previously excluded into a new but equally broken system.

We need to decolonize the public sphere by changing the narrative and enabling meaningful structural change driven by local leadership.

This explains why we need to co-create a governance model which, when adopted at scale, will drive the systems change required to fix the social good sector. In sum, we need to decolonize the public sphere by changing the narrative and enabling meaningful structural change driven by local leadership. In this decolonized sphere, complex social problems are complex and tackled as such. Included in this sphere is the plurality of solutions necessary to address social issues effectively and sustainably.

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Back to the Future: Drones in Humanitarian Action

Posted on November 18, 2019 | Leave a comment

A devastating earthquake struck Nepal on April 25th, 2015. The humanitarian drone response to the earthquake was almost entirely foreign-led, top-down and techno-centric. International drone teams self-deployed and largely ignored the humanitarian drone code of conduct. Many had never heard of humanitarian principles and most had no prior experience in disaster response. Some were arrested by local authorities. At best, these foreign drone teams had little to no impact. At worse, they violated the principle of Do No Harm. Nepal Flying Labs was co-created five months after the earthquake, on September 25th, 2015, to localize the responsible and effective use of drones for positive social impact. Today, Flying Labs are operational in 25 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

This month, on behalf of the World Food Program (WFP), WeRobotics teamed up with Nepal Flying Labs and WFP Nepal to run a 5-day hands-on training and disaster simulation to improve the rapid deployment and coordination of drones in humanitarian action. WeRobotics previously designed and ran similar humanitarian drone trainings and simulations on behalf of WFP (and others) in the Dominican Republic, Peru, Myanmar, Malawi and Mozambique, for example. In fact, WeRobotics has been running humanitarian drone trainings since 2015 both in-person and online.

All 25 Flying Labs typically run their trainings in local languages. As such, the 5-day training in Nepal was largely led by Nepal Flying Labs and run in Nepali. Over 40 participants from 16 Nepali organizations took the training, which included an introduction to drone technologies,  drone photogrammetry, imagery processing, lessons learned and best practices from past humanitarian drone missions, and overviews of codes of conduct, data protection protocols and coordination mechanisms, all drawn from direct operational experience. The training also comprised a series of excellent talks given by Nepali experts who are already engaged in the use of drones in disaster management and other sectors in Nepal. This featured important talks by several officials from the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN). In addition, the training included a co-creation session using design thinking methods during which local experts identified the most promising humanitarian applications of drone technology in Nepal.

Nepal Flying Labs also trained participants on how to fly drones and program drone flights. The drones were rented locally from the Flying Labs and their partners. This hands-on session, kindly hosted by Kathmandu University, was followed by another hands-on session on how to process and analyze aerial imagery. In this session, Nepal Flying Labs introduced participants to Pix4Dreact and Picterra. Pix4Dreact provides an ultra-rapid solution to data processing, allowing humanitarian drone teams to process 1,000 high-resolution aerial images in literally minutes, which is invaluable as this used to take hours. Picterra enables drone teams to quickly analyze aerial imagery by automatically identifying features of interest to disaster responders such as damaged buildings, for example. While Picterra uses deep learning and transfer learning to automate feature detection, users don’t need any background or prior experience in artificial intelligence to make full use of the platform. During the hands on-session, trainers used Picterra to automatically detect buildings in aerial (orthophoto) map of an earthquake-affected area.

After completing a full day of hands-on training, Nepal Flying Labs gave a briefing on the disaster simulation scheduled for the following day. The simulation is the centerpiece of the humanitarian drone trainings run by WeRobotics and Flying Labs. It requires participants to put into practice everything they’ve learned in the training. The simulation consolidates their learning and provides them with important insights on how to streamline their coordination efforts. It is often said that disaster responders train the way they respond and respond they way they train. This is why simulations are absolutely essential.

The simulation was held at Bhumlu Rural Municipality, a 3+ hour drive from Kathmandu. Bhumlu is highly prone to flooding and landslides, which is why it was selected for the simulation and why the Government of Nepal was particularly keen to get high-resolution maps of the area. The disaster simulation was run by Nepal Flying Labs in Nepali. The simulation, first designed by WeRobotics in 2015, consists of three teams (Authorities, Pilots and Analysts) who must work together to identify and physically retrieve colored markers as quickly and safely as possible. The markers, which were placed across Bhumlu prior to participants’ arrival, are typically 1 meter by 1 meter in size, and each color represents an indicator of interest to humanitarians, e.g., Yellow = survivor; Blue = landslide; and Red = disaster damage. Both the colors and the number of different markers are customized based on the local priorities. Below, Nepal Flying Labs Coordinator Uttam Pudasaini hides a yellow marker under a tree prior to the arrival of participants.

Myanmar has held the record for the fastest completion of the simulation since 2017. As such, they’ve held the number one spot and been the gold standard for two years now. The teams in Myanmar, who were trained by WeRobotics, retrieved all markers in just over 4 hours. As such, WeRobotics challenged the teams in Nepal to beat that record and take over the number one spot. They duly obliged and retrieved all markers in a very impressive time of 3 hours and 4 minutes, clenching the number one spot from Myanmar.

On the following and final day of the workshop, Nepal Flying Labs and WeRobotics facilitated an all-hands session to debrief on the simulation, inviting each team and trainee to reflect on lessons learned and share their insights. For example, a feedback loop between the Pilots and Analysis Teams is important so pilots can plan further flights based on the maps produced by the analysts. Like a number of previous simulations run by WeRobotics, the Analysis Team noted that having a portal printer on hand would be ideal. The Pilots Team also suggested that having different colored visibility vests would’ve enabled more rapid field coordination between and within teams by enabling individuals to more quickly identify who is who.

When asked which individuals or group had the most challenging job in the simulation, the consensus was the retrieval group who are part of the Authorities Team and responsible for retrieving the markers after they’ve been geo-located by the Analysis Team. This was particularly interesting given that in all previous simulations run by WeRobotics, the consensus had always been that the Analysis Team had the hardest task. In coming weeks, these insights together with the many others gained from the simulation in Nepal will be added to this document on best practices in humanitarian drone missions.

After the full simulation debrief, Nepal Flying Labs facilitated the final session of the training: a panel discussion on the development of drone regulations to save lives and reduce suffering in Nepal. The panelists included senior officials from Civil Aviation, Home Ministry and Nepal Police. The session was run in Nepali and presented participants with an excellent opportunity to engage with and inform key policymakers. In preparation for this session, Nepal Flying Labs and partners prepared this 3-page policy document (PDF) with priority questions and recommendations, which served as the basis for the Q&A with the panel. This discussion and policy document created a roadmap for next steps which Nepal Flying Labs and partners have pledged to take forward with all stakeholders.

Acknowledgements: WeRobotics and Nepal Flying Labs would like to sincerely thank WFP HQ and WPF Nepal for the kind invitation to run this training and for providing the superb coordination and logistics that made this training so fruitful. WeRobotics and Nepal Flying Labs would also like to express sincere thanks to DroNepal for co-leading the training with Nepal Flying Labs. Sincere thanks to the local communities we worked with during the simulation and to the CAA and local police for granting flight permissions. To all 40+ participants, sincerest thanks for all the energy you brought to the training and for your high levels of engagement throughout each of the 5 days, which significantly enriched the training. Last but certainly not least, sincere thanks to the Belgium Government for funding this training.

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Drone Charter on Equal Opportunity and Inclusion

Posted on June 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

In 2018, the number of Flying Labs expanded by more than 500 percent, driven entirely by local demand. As the Flying Labs continue to rapidly expand, we’ve surfaced a number of important insights about inclusion and equal opportunity. As more Labs join the network, we are collectively realizing that many face the exact same challenges, no matter where they are in the world or how different their countries might be. Today, local experts are running Flying Labs in 23 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania. These experts include local entrepreneurs, local engineers and local change makers. They collaborate with each other on projects and trainings across borders, and share their own learnings with each other.

Screenshot 2019-06-06 11.26.44

When 12 of the Flying Labs braved the New York winter earlier this year to gather for the annual Flying Labs Retreat, we realized that the barriers they faced around inclusion and equal opportunity were systemic. So we discussed a range of complementary solutions with all 23 Flying Labs including the need for a Flying Labs Charter on Equal Opportunity, which we are publishing today (Google Doc, PDF).

The charter is signed by each of the 23 Flying Labs, who will actively disseminate the policy document to local, national, regional and international stakeholders in their countries. WeRobotics will do the same at the international level to ensure that international regulators and international organizations are aware of the interests and priorities of local experts, local entrepreneurs, local engineers and local change makers. These local actors rarely get a seat at the table or a voice. The purpose of this Charter is to change this and for local actors to stand united in their call for inclusion and equal opportunity in the use of drones and robotics for positive social change.

Please help them share this Charter far and wide.

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Building Cargo Drone Expertise in Papua New Guinea

Posted on February 25, 2019 | 1 comment

WeRobotics was recently asked by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to organize a training on medical cargo drones in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The purpose of the training was to engage key stakeholders on the opportunities and challenges of using cargo drones in the wake of PNG’s most recent polio outbreak. An important component of the training was a hands-on demo of cargo drone deliveries. There were three key reasons for making this operational demo part of the training: 1) introduce stakeholders to cargo drone technology and standard operating procedures; 2) test how quickly a cargo drone team could be deployed; 3) test how quickly flight permissions could be secured from PNG’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). WeRobotics was given 10 weeks to implement the project. It was completed in 8 weeks.

WeRobotics partnered with two outstanding groups who ensured the project’s complete success: Soli Consultancy and Redwing Labs India. Soli Consultancy are the co-founders of PNG Flying Labs while Redwing Labs is a founding partner of India Flying Labs. Soli Consultancy has extensive experience in aviation regulations and took the lead on securing the flight permissions for the CDC project. They also took the lead on the logistics for the workshop. Redwing Labs is a cargo drone company from India that was recently selected Techstars USA, the biggest VC accelerator program in the world with an acceptance rate of less than 1%. Both Soli and Redwing went well above and beyond to ensure that the extremely tight timeline would be met. The CDC team in PNG lent invaluable support to both Soli and Redwing throughout the very busy 7 weeks leading up to the training and cargo drone flights.

Credit: National Department of Health

Around 40 stakeholders participated in the workshop, representing an important mix of expertise from public health, aviation, and private sectors. The workshop agenda is available here (PDF). The first session comprised talks from senior health officials from PNG, Mr. Berry Ropa and Dr. Mathias Bauri from the National Department of Health. Each speaker reported on the very real difficulties in reaching remote communities in PNG. They both noted that some communities can only be reached by helicopter (costing around USD 2,500 / hour). This was followed by an open discussion between participants reflecting on related challenges and potential ways that drones might be able to address or overcome some of these challenges.

I had the pleasure of leading Session 2. The purpose of this session was to give all participants a solid background in medical cargo drones including use-cases, technologies, deployments, ethical issues, lessons learned and best practices. This 1.5 hour presentation was followed by an open discussion by all stakeholders. The session included a demo of cargo drone boxes by my good colleague Dr. Timothy Amukele and the first public announcement of the launch of PNG Flying Labs, which was very warmly welcomed by local stakeholders. Following the presentation, an open question and answer session allowed participants to move the conversations forward vis-à-vis the PNG context.

Session three was a design-thinking session with a total of 5 breakout groups. Each group was asked to identify specific health projects that they believed could benefit from the use of drones. This meant identify the key health need, where geographically this need was greatest and which stakeholders would be best placed to implement the use of cargo drone deliveries in that context. Participants were then asked to select the one project they considered most compelling for immediate implementation. The results were particularly informative and some detailed enough to develop an initial concept note and proposal for.

In the fourth session, I provided an overview of business models, cost structures, sustainability strategies, and different methodologies to assess the cost-benefit of introducing cargo drone deliveries in a given context. This 45-minute presentation was followed by another open discussion during which participants connected the ideas presented to the PNG context. The fifth and final session was run by Redwing and served as an introduction to drone regulations, safety, standard operating procedures, fail-safe mechanisms and more.

The cargo drone demo day was scheduled for the day after the workshop at Pacific Adventist University. A backup day was set aside in case of rain. Sure enough, there where strong winds with heavy downpour that morning, so the demo day was rescheduled to the following day. Drones can certainly be made more weather proof, this is not a major technical challenge. The question has more to do with cost, since technical modifications and add-on’s necessarily require engineering resources. That said, as one local public health expert at the workshop noted, when there’s a heavy downpour like this in PNG, even 4WD cars will get stuck in muddy roads.

The original plan for the cargo drone demo was to fly from the university to Sogeri National High School through a remote mountainous terrain 17 kilometers away and with an elevation difference of some 1,000 feet. While Redwing complied with regulatory requirements for flight approvals, CASA did not approve flights Beyond Visual Line of Site (BVLOS). They informed us that an American cargo drone company had recently crashed their drone in PNG as part of a project with an international health organization. As such, CASA preferred that the Redwing flights all be conducted within Visual Line of Site, or VLOS. PNG Flying Labs and Soli Consultancy are now following-up with CASA to continue working towards an unmanned aircraft operator’s certificate.

Given that only VLOS flights were permitted, it was decided that the drone would take off from the university, fly large loops within visual line of sight and cover a distance of 17 kilometers in order to simulate the original flight plan displayed above. Vaccine vials were placed in the cargo box along with multiple icepacks and a temperature data logger. The cargo box was then fastened to the cargo drone. The total weight carried was around 680 grams. The temperature going in was around 1.5C.

The Redwing drone is a VTOL or hybrid drone, meaning that it takes off and lands vertically but then transitions to fly like plane. The advantage of hybrid drones is that they can take off and land in narrow places but still have the range of a fixed-wing drone when they transition to forward flight. The demonstration went flawlessly, with the drone covering 24 km in approximately 20 minutes. The cargo drone flew at an average speed of 75 km per hour and at an altitude of 120 meters. The temperature of the cargo was around 7.5C after landing even though there was very minimal insulation. While Redwing did both the takeoff and landings manually, they noted that both could be done autonomously as well regardless of the cargo weight.

Credit: Laurence Korup, Oceanian Multimedia

Sincerest thanks to the following organizations for their partnership and trust: CDC, Gates Foundation, Soli Consulting, Redwing Labs and CASA. We’re very pleased to have launched Papua New Guinea Flying Labs, which is part of the growing South Pacific Flying Labs network. PNG Flying Labs will be introduced more formally in coming weeks and we expect Vanuatu Flying Labs to join the South Pacific Network in the very near future.

WeRobotics is also exploring a number of other medical cargo drone projects in Nepal, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cameroon, Uganda and the Dominican Republic. We’ll be sure to share our lessons learned and best practices for those projects that do move forward. So stay tuned for more updates throughout 2019. In the meantime, learn how South Pacific Flying Labs is using cargo drones to help reduce Dengue fever in Fiji, and how Peru Flying Labs and Dominican Republic Flying Labs are using cargo drones for other public health use cases. Also, be sure to sign up for our upcoming online course on Medical Cargo Drones in Public Health.

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How Local Drone Pilots Are Reducing Dengue Fever

Posted on December 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

The dengue fever outbreak in Fiji in 2014 was one of the region’s largest known outbreaks of the mosquito-borne infection. Scientists studying the outbreak believe climate change was a contributing factor: more flooding results in more areas of standing water for longer periods—perfect breeding grounds for mosquitos. According to the World Health Organization’s Regional Office, the islands of the South Pacific are “some of the most vulnerable places on the planet to health effects of climate change.” Unfortunately, existing tools to control these mosquitoes such as insecticide spraying are not efficient and have failed to eliminate dengue as a public health concern. Worldwide, an estimated 390 million human dengue infections occur every year. This explains why ministries of health in the South Pacific expect larger outbreaks. In fact, Fiji experienced another outbreak of dengue fever this year, which once again prompted urgent calls for more effective and preventative solutions.

One such solution may be the use of Wolbachia-treated mosquitos. Wolbachia is a naturally occurring bacteria that prevents mosquitos from transmitting diseases like Zika and dengue. This explains why our partners at the World Mosquito Program (WMP) and the Ministry of Health and Medical Services have been releasing Wolbachia-carrying mosquitos in Fiji. This is done be driving around a town or village with canisters of Wolbachia mosquitoes (W-mosquitoes for short). The driver pulls over by the side of the road every few minutes to release one canister at a time. Over time, Wolbachia becomes established in the local mosquito population. When most of the mosquito population have Wolbachia, local communities in Fiji should be at lower risk of getting dengue, Zika and chikungunya.

Releasing Wolbachia mosquitos “by car” presents a number of challenges, however. First, during the rainy and cyclone seasons, many roads become unusable while pools of standing water breed more mosquitos. What’s more, mosquitos that are released by car may not be uniformly distributed over an area but rather constrained by the local road network. As such, a significant amount of work and time has to go into planning the best routes for cars given these fixed constraints. Lastly, not everyone lives next to a road and so are potentially excluded from public health interventions.

Countries in the region experience severe flooding during Cyclone season

This explains why WMP teamed up with WeRobotics earlier this year. WeRobotics engineers have been busy developing an aerial release mechanism that can be attached to a drone. Combining both the aerial and ground-based release of W-mosquitos is expected to be a lot more effective. The aerial release mechanism can store up to 160,000 W-mosquitos at 5 degrees Celsius and release 200 mosquitos at a time every 50 meters. This is enough to cover an area of four square kilometers. Aerial releases are much faster than ground releases (no traffic, stop lights, pedestrians, etc.) and, unlike cars, drones don’t burn fossil fuels. A drone can cover an area of 10km2 in a couple hours while mosquito releases by car over the same area would require several days. In addition, the use of drones provides far more homogeneous releases and better coverage. Another bonus: drone routes are much easier to plan than car routes.

The mechanism is airborne and ready to release 200 W-mosquitos at a time

A fully operational prototype of the release mechanism is currently being piloted in the South Pacific after 5 months of local community engagement and awareness raising. WeRobotics engineers have already trained local drone pilots with South Pacific Flying Labs and Drone Services Fiji on how to operate the drone and the release mechanism safely and effectively. As such, the local team at Pacific Flying Labs is now taking the lead in piloting the drone and aerial releases as part WMP’s public health intervention in Fiji.

Building local capacity is central to the mission of WeRobotics as is creating local ownership of health, humanitarian, development and environmental projects. The localization of this expertise and technology through the global Flying Labs network leads to more sustainable and impactful projects.

An aerially-released mosquito finds their way to the arm of a WMP colleague

When the pilot project completes this week, South Pacific Flying Labs and partners will have released around half-a-million W-mosquitos. WMP has engaged the help of local community members to host a large network of mosquito traps across the release area to determine how widely, quickly and uniformly these mosquitos have dispersed compared to ground-released mosquitos. W-mosquitos can be distinguished from others because the former have each been dusted with yellow-colored dye. Once our friends at WMP complete their evaluation following of trial, we’ll be able to quantify the added value of complementing ground-based releases with aerial releases. Future trials will seek to optimize the release methods so that mosquito deployments can be achieved across larger areas.

South Pacific Flying Labs is funded by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The drone component of the mosquito project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Combating Zika and Future Threats Grand Challenge. Earlier this year, WeRobotics tested the use of drones for mosquito release in Brazil using a completely different prototype release mechanism.

 

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How Drone Natives are Decolonizing Robotics

Posted on July 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

In 2015, Cyclone Pam devastated the islands of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. In response to the Category 5 Cyclone, I was asked by the World Bank to coordinate a humanitarian drone mission to speed up the damage assessments. But I couldn’t find any local drone pilots at the time, so had to recruit two foreign drone companies from Australia and New Zealand instead. Their drone pilots did a great job under challenging conditions over the course of several weeks. I continue to be in touch with them and continue to learn from them. They’re top notch professionals.

I’m just really tired of seeing videos like the one above. Foreigners with the technology; locals as passive observers. It should of course be the other way around: Locals with the technology and foreigners as passive observers; foreigners holding umbrellas for local drone pilots. Seriously. Why can’t it be the other way around?

Fast forward to 2018. The South Pacific has been battered by an onslaught of major cyclones, no fewer than 4 in almost as many months. Unlike 2015, one local drone pilot deployed to the affected areas to support the relief efforts. Her name is Amrita Lal (pictured below) and she serves as the Coordinator of South Pacific Flying Labs based in Fiji. In deploying with the Red Cross following Cyclone Keni, Amrita became the first local drone pilot to deploy with a National Red Cross Society in the region.

Our mission at WeRobotics is to localize opportunity. We create local opportunities to participate in problem solving, to take the lead in problem solving, to be a real part of the solution, to have meaningful and sustainable impact. By localizing expertise in robotics, we create new opportunities to scale humanitarian aid, sustainable development, public health or nature conservation efforts locally. In so doing, we create local opportunities for professional development and upward mobility. How do we create and sustain these new opportunities? By localizing emerging technologies through our Flying Labs. (We like to call them Wakanda Flying Labs).

Demand for the skills that Amrita and her Flying Labs have is growing. This is the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR) after all: the rise of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the global labor market, shutting down some job opportunities entirely while creating new ones. This is a disruptive time in human history. And we know from previous industrial revolutions that they create divides between the “have’s” and “have nots”; between the included and the excluded; between those who have access to new opportunities and those who don’t. The First Industrial revolution was powered by the steam engine along with the iron and textile industries. The second was powered by steel, oil and electricity. Digital technologies unleashed the Third Industrial Revolution. Each these revolutions created new opportunities for some (usually in high-income countries), and obliterated existing opportunities for others (usually in low-income countries).

The Digital Divide of the Third Industrial Revolution has created profound inequalities, and the Robotics Divide of the 4IR is already exacerbating these inequalities. (What’s that? You don’t have 3G in your village? Oh. Well sorry, we can’t fly our medical delivery drones to your village without 3G. Can we have our umbrella back?). As my new colleague from Cameroon, Marco Enoh, recently tweeted,

“We forcefully enabled the First Industrial Revolution, were sidelined during the Second Industrial Revolution, we developed dependency in the Third Industrial Revolution… Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution! What are we going to do? Either shape technologies for collective prosperity or forever remain at the lowest levels of global value chains.”

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is creating new jobs in lower-income countries. But these jobs are almost always taken by foreign companies from higher-income countries. Why? Either because the local talent doesn’t exist, or because said local talent is not visible or connected to these new job opportunities. Our Flying Labs serve to overcome these unjust hurdles. Fact is, foreign companies are more expensive to hire. Foreign drone pilots need more time to deploy. They need international flights and hotels. They often don’t know the countries that they’re sent to and rarely know the local languages or customs. This creates an exciting business opportunity for Amrita and Marco, and their colleagues at other Flying Labs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Robotics enables new business opportunities because robots enable an entirely new form of mobility—autonomous mobility. Autonomous mobility in the air (flying drones), in the oceans (swimming drones) and on land (driving drones). Mobility gives freedom, which creates new opportunities (think of the automotive revolution). This explains why we are committed to helping our Flying Labs and their partners use autonomous robotics to overcome the challenge of mobility in humanitarian aid, sustainable development, nature conservation and public health. We’ve borrowed some of this language from our new friends at World Bicycle Relief because their approach is similar to ours: It isn’t about the technology—bicycle or drone—it’s about localizing this technology sustainably and respectfully to create new opportunities.

So yes, we localize robotics. But that’s hardly the point. Robotics is simply a means to an end. We localize opportunities to scale local solutions. We localize opportunities to enable direct and local participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This explains why our Flying Labs are directly connected to each other; why Amrita from Pacific Flying Labs recently trained Leka and Team from Tanzania Flying Labs on how to use underwater drones; why Dania, Oscar and Humberto from Panama Flying Labs are working with us to create engineering solutions with Pacific Flying Labs; why Tanzania Flying Labs is helping to incubate Kenya Flying Labs and why Nepal Flying Labs is learning about cargo drones from Flying Labs in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Each of these connections in the Flying Labs network create new opportunities to participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Amrita was presented with an important opportunity to become the first local, female drone pilot in her region to deploy with a National Red Cross Society. She grabbed it and ran with it. This experience has opened up new opportunities for her and her Flying Labs team in the Pacific. This includes incubating a new hub of Pacific Flying Labs in Vanuatu in coming months. So the next time Vanuatu has to deal with a major tropical cyclone or other consequences of climate change, the World Bank must not hire me or hire any foreign drone pilots to accelerate their damage assessments. No, they should instead hire Amrita and her team of drone natives from Pacific Flying Labs.

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