It sounds like science fiction: unmanned drones carrying emergency medicine zooming above the rolling hills of Rwanda.<\/p>\n
But there are proposals \u2013 including one by the eminent British architect Norman Foster \u2013 to set up \u201ccargo drone routes capable of delivering urgent and precious supplies to remote areas on a massive scale\u201d, and the East African nation of Rwanda has been chosen as a test case.<\/p>\n
Droneland: where hobbyists rule the skies
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\n\u201cSpecialist drones can carry blood and life-saving supplies over 100km [60 miles] at minimal cost, providing an affordable alternative that can complement road-based deliveries,\u201d the proposal reads.<\/p>\n
Rwanda, left in ruins after genocide in 1994, has rapidly rebuilt. The government has pushed initiatives to boost technology, and the powerful president, Paul Kagame, dreams of turning the capital, Kigali, into a regional hub for investors and multinational companies.<\/p>\n
Government efforts have rapidly pushed mobile phone and internet coverage across the landlocked nation, but the rolling landscape of a nation described as the \u201cland of a thousand hills\u201d means physical access to some areas is more challenging.<\/p>\n
The proposal \u2013 by architecture firm Foster + Partners, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and its linked Afrotech initiative\u2013 hopes to see drones with a three-metre (10-foot) wingspan able to carry deliveries weighing 10kg (22lb).<\/p>\n
Drones with a six-metre wingspan, capable of carrying payloads of 100kg, are planned to follow by 2025.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAfrica is a continent where the gap between the population and infrastructural growth is increasing exponentially,\u201d Foster said at the project launch earlier this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dearth of terrestrial infrastructure has a direct impact on the ability to deliver life-giving supplies, indeed where something as basic as blood is not always available for timely treatment. We require immediate bold, radical solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pilot project is slated to begin next year, with three \u201cdrone-port\u201d buildings due for completion by 2020. The drones will be able to cover almost half of Rwanda\u2019s countryside.<\/p>\n
Although Rwanda\u2019s government has yet to comment on the proposals, people have welcomed the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe introduction of drones can add to the many solutions we have available to tackle infrastructure challenges in Rwanda,\u201d Junior Sabena Mutabazi wrote in the pro-government New Times newspaper.<\/p>\n
Rwanda, small, tightly controlled and with modern infrastructure only in key hubs, offers the chance to test case cargo drones before possible expansion into wilder, less developed countries on the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drone-port project is about doing \u2018more with less\u2019, capitalising on the recent advancements in drone technology \u2013 something that is usually associated with war and hostilities \u2013 to make an immediate life-saving impact in Africa,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n
Those developing the project say that in many parts of Africa, too remote to establish telephone landlines, mobile technology leapfrogged that step, with mobiles now common across the continent even in remote places.<\/p>\n
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Drones, it is argued, could do the same where a lack of roads has made access tough.<\/p>\n
\u201cCargo drone routes have utility wherever there is a lack of roads,\u201d the project proposal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust as mobile phones dispensed with landlines, cargo drones can transcend geographical barriers such as mountains, lakes and unnavigable rivers without the need for large-scale physical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Ledgard, from the Swiss-based Afrotech \u2013 an initiative aiming to \u201chelp pioneer advanced technologies in Africa at massive scale\u201d \u2013 knows the challenges, having worked as a journalist in trouble spots across the continent for a decade.<\/p>\n
Ledgard is convinced cargo drones will be the future, but is also determined the technology will benefit those who need it most.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is inevitable on a crowded planet, with limited resources, that we will make more intensive use of our sky using flying robots to move goods faster, cheaper and more accurately than ever before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is not inevitable that these craft or their landing sites will be engineered to be tough and cheap enough to serve poorer communities who can make most use of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrone-port is an attempt to make that happen, and to improve health and economic outcomes in Africa \u2013 and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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