Drone aircraft and multicopters get their share of attention from news coverage of their use in conflicted areas of the world, especially in the Middle East, where they are used by U.S. military to take out specific targets in the fight against terrorism. However, there are many use cases other than war for these unmanned vehicles. One use nobody can disparage is the delivery of life-saving medicine, blood and vaccines to extremely difficult-to-reach parts of the world. The government of Rwanda, faced with a decades-long struggle to reduce the number of juvenile deaths and mothers dying in childbirth and the spread of malaria, has decided to be proactive on this front. It has hired a coalition that includes the United Parcel Service Foundation, the Gavi Vaccine Alliance (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and drone-building startup Zipline of Menlo Park, Calif. Zipline is backed by Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, Paul Allen, Jerry Yang and Stanford University. A small group of journalists was invited to a test demonstration in the hills south of San Francisco on May 5; eatures highlights of that demo. Rwanda and the project coalition hope to have this up and flying on a daily basis this summer.
- eWeek