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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

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.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/16/african-experiments-with-drone-technologies-could-leapfrog-decades-of-infrastructure-neglect/

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