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Countries across the continent are experimenting with this 21st century technology as a way to leapfrog decades of neglect of 20th century infrastructure.
Over the last two years, San Francisco-based startup Zipline launched a national UAV delivery program in East Africa; South Africa passed commercial drone legislation to train and license pilots; and Malawi even opened a Drone Test Corridor to African and its global partners.
In Rwanda, the country's government became one of the first adopters of performance-based regulations for all drones earlier this year. The country's progressive UAV programs drew special attention from the White House and two U.S. Secretaries of Transportation.
[...] After several test rounds, Zipline went live with the program in October, becoming the world's first national drone delivery program at scale.
"We've since completed over 6000 deliveries and logged 500,000 flight kilometers," Zipline co-founder Keenan Wyrobek told TechCrunch. "We're planning to go live in Tanzania soon and talking to some other African countries."
[...] In a non-delivery commercial use case, South Africa's Rocketmine has built out a UAV survey business in 5 countries. The company looks to book $2 million in revenue in 2018 for its "aerial data solutions" services in mining, agriculture, forestry, and civil engineering.
[...] The continent's test programs — and Rwanda's performance-based drone regulations in particular — could advance beyond visual line of sight UAV technology at a quicker pace. This could set the stage for faster development of automated drone fleets for remote internet access, commercial and medical delivery, and even give Africa a lead in testing flying autonomous taxis.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Monday September 24 2018, @04:57PM (13 children)
So a decade ago we were regaled with stories declaring how Africa was going to leapfrog wired infrastructure and just go straight to cellphones for everthing. Now they are going to leapfrog the rest of the world and just deliver everything by drone.
Lets translate this from pablum to English. They are going to be sitting in their mud huts for the next century and we will keep throwing things at them out of a sense of guilt. So they will be sitting in mud huts with a solar panel, sat dish and cellphone, getting a few deliveries by drone. Until such time as we tire of it all, run out of guilt or our own civilization collapses to the point we can't afford to be this stupid anymore. In the end it all has to be charity because they have little to trade for the industrial marvels the rest of the world produces and lack the skills or desire to produce any of this stuff themselves. When that happens they will still be happily sitting in the same mud huts when the last cell tower goes dark and it will be as if none of it ever happened.
They used to call it the "dark continent" for a reason, the light of civilization does not shine there and when we take a lamp in it flickers out because it just can't exist there. No civilization there, without outside influence, used the wheel, developed anything approaching advanced agriculture, developed advanced written language, high culture or art, nothing. Don't believe me, carry your butt to a museum sometime. They all have to have an African section lest they be savaged as politically incorrect. Look at it. All of it is childish and primitive stuff. Now look at Chinese art from thousands of years before, European art from a thousand years ago, Mediterranean art from several thousand years ago, Egyptian art from thousands of years ago. Now look at the tools, weapons and other artifacts on display. Seeing a pattern yet?
Reality is what is left after you have tried and failed to disbelieve your senses.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:06PM
Have you ever tried fire walking? Well, let me tell you, for someone with such an impressive intellect and formidable physique I suggest you try fire existing. This is a whole-body endurance test where you find a burning building and make it to all the rooms. Once you've visited every room you exit through the back.
If ever there was a worthy candidate you shine above.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:16PM (7 children)
What about Kush? The Copts? What about Carthage? Also, Egypt is an African civilization, in Africa.
Africa is kind of a big place with a long history. It has had many kinds of people and civilizations on it.
In more recent centuries it suffered a lot under colonialism. Political boundaries were drawn that were not natural to it, and that's just one legacy of that time that still stymies the place today.
It's glib to dismiss all that complexity.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)
Being racist is entirely an exercise in being glib.
a : marked by ease and informality : nonchalant
b : showing little forethought or preparation : offhand glib answers
c : lacking depth and substance :
Racism is an emotional belief, no amount of logic is going to suddenly make bigots drop their prejudice.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @09:35PM
Ah yes, brigade the posts that you don't like! Feeed your anger, let it grow and one day you can take your proper place as Emperor.
Yall fucktards be dumb, modding up obvious ignorant race baiting bullshit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa [wikipedia.org]
jmorris is a racist troll and he is consistently modded up, want to change the perception that conservatives are not all racist? Mod that bullshit down every time it comes up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
Sadly, maybe Africa is too big, and has too long a history. At least some part of Africa's problem is, they've lost a lot of their history. Empires have risen and fallen there, and been forgotten. Any one of the tribes you might find in the African bush might be the legitimate heirs of some noble line from one of those forgotten empires.
Asia has similarly forgotten empires. but they also have surviving empires, and histories to show for all their trouble. Some people in Asia have more-or-less reverted to barbarity, but the civilized people far outnumber the barbarians. India, China, and Japan, especially, have rich histories going back thousands of years longer than the West. In Africa, only Egypt and Persia can make such claims.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:49PM (2 children)
Wot! A Tiger? In Africa? [youtube.com]
Nashville in Arkansas meets Cairo in Persia in Africa. Americans, and Geography.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:41AM (1 child)
OK, someone will need to explain this post to Runaway, or he will not understand that he has once again been slammed for being an ignoramous. Volunteers?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:54AM
And you think that explaining it to him will help? I am just enjoying a tete-a-tete with Runaway and khallow, and seeing the ignoramous hand the other his own ass. Which is which is left as an exercise for the reader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @08:18PM
Normally, people refer to the darker people.
The modern country with the strongest genetic match to ancient Egyptians is Syria. People similar to the today's Syrians made the pyramids.
The only ancient thing of note in sub-Saharan Africa is Great Zimbabwe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @06:47PM (2 children)
I'll make a rival prediction. I predict most of Africa will achieve developed world status by 2100. In some sense, though my prediction is not that different. They won't get there by using hand-me-down trinkets from the existing developed world, but by developing the same democracy-capitalism infrastructure that has worked so well for the developed world today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @11:17PM (1 child)
Yes, the Chinese will provide the knowhow for that democracy-capitalism infrastructure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:52AM
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @07:02PM
They call it the "Dark Continent" because evil white oppressors know that the light of journalism never shines there. How many blood diamonds do you own?