First-ever Study on Robotics in Climate Action

The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time, and we need all hands and appropriate tech on deck to mitigate the effects of the emergency and adapt responsibly. The Climate Robotics Network is exploring the potential of robotics to scale existing climate solutions and offer novel solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate risk. Thus far, the evidence suggests that Climate Action needs some level of automation to scale. Learn more in our new study!

Our White Paper draws on concrete Climate Robotics case studies to highlight how existing solutions can augment our capacity to tackle the climate emergency. More specifically, the case studies focus on Mangrove Restoration, Forecasting Extreme Weather Events, Scaling Wind Energy, Regenerating Corals, Collecting Ocean Data, Removing Carbon with Seaweed, Scaling Cover Crop Seeding, Automating Solar Panel Cleaning, and Expanding the Amount of Recycled Waste. These case studies yield essential insights on using robotics in Climate Action. These include insights on Scaling, Adaptation vs. Mitigation, Bits vs. Atoms, Mobile vs. Fixed Robotics, and Sudden vs. Slow Onset Disasters. 

Using robotics in Climate Action also presents many challenges and risks, including Top-Down Approaches, Techno-Centric Thinking, Lack of Evidence and Accountability, Financing and Affordability, Safety, Privacy and Governance, Simplicity, Maintenance, Repairability, Sustainability, and last but certainly not least, Environmental Impact.

We unpack and discuss these challenges in detail and note that many are not inherent to robotics alone. The Humanitarian Tech space has faced several challenges, which means best practices and lessons learned already exist to manage these challenges. The Climate Robotics Network is actively drawing on these and other insights to inform the responsible, sustainable, and effective use of robotics in Climate Action.

Still, we face far more questions than answers in this new space; hence the need for a climate robotics network, conceptual framework, research agenda, series of white papers, summit, and knowledge base.

Video: Why Climate Robotics?

Why am I interested in Climate Robotics? For many reasons, like the fact that robots can simultaneously assess and assist climate action in unique ways. This new video in our series on “Climate Robotics in Action” explore this further. The series highlights real-world deployments of climate robotics, along with key opportunities, challenges, and risks.

Be sure to follow the Climate Robotics Network to catch future videos and get involved. You can also join us on Slack. In the meantime, feel free to share questions you’d like us to explore in future videos!

On the Decentralization of Robotics (A Story about Trouts, Magic Seeds, and Spidey Senses, Naturally)

So here’s the thing: “Robots are still being built in the same way as they have been for 70 years, since the dawn of robotics and its Taylorist and Fordist approach.” 😱 But guess what? This is about to change in fascinating ways, as Sascha Freyberg & Helmut Hauser describe in “The Morphological Paradigm in Robotics.” Published in the journal on Studies in History and Philosophy of Science and exploring the future of robotics, this enthralling study features a zombie trout, a very clever seed, and our favorite spidey sense.

(For my work on the decentralization of social good application of robotics worldwide, please see WeRobotics, an international tech nonprofit that I co-founded and led as executive director for 7+ years. Freyberg and Hauser’s insights relate to this work, as explained in the conclusion below).

It’s been decades, but the control approach in conventional robotics has hardly evolved: the center must constantly send signals to the periphery at each time step. More formally, morphology has no control function in robotics. The morphology of a robot refers to its structure, softness, shape, and surface properties. These properties do not act intelligently or independently from the brain (control center).

In contrast, “biological systems use morphological properties to implement intelligent behavior.” And they do so with excellent energy efficiency, robustness, and flexibility. Moreover, they’re quick to learn, even under highly noisy conditions. ”Interestingly, these highly complex tasks are often performed with extremely primitive brains–often without them at all.”

Enter the Zombie Trout

Let’s illustrate this by turning to Exhibit A from Mother Nature. Freyberg and Hauser use the curious case of “Shrödinger’s Trout” (stay with me here). The video below, captured by the Lauder Lab at Harvard, shows a trout swimming in their water tank. Water flows into the tank on the left side and straight out again on the right. “This allows a controlled laboratory environment to conduct reproducible experiments. The trout swims in a wonderfully natural movement from left to right and explores the surroundings. Or so it seems.”

Turns out, the trout is actually attached with a nylon string because, well, it’s dead. Condolences. The point being, “no nerve signals are sent, not a single muscle is activated. Nevertheless, the trout swims in the stream in an impressively natural way, even against the flow. This swimming movement arises purely from the morphological properties of the fish’s body (its structure, softness, shape and surface properties) and their reaction to the forces of the environment (the flow). So it is the materiality of the fish that (re)acts here. Based on these observations we could say that a significant part of the normal swimming behavior can also be performed by a dead fish.”

Talk about highly energy-efficient morphology! The trout’s swimming movement is achieved without muscle power, i.e., “without energy input [or control] on the part of the fish.” This example shows that biological systems use morphological properties to implement intelligent behavior, behavior that is mistakenly attributed to the brain. But in fact, this behavior often occurs locally, at the level of the body rather than from the control center.

This need not be surprising, however. As Freyberg and Hauser remind us, “long before neurons or even brains appeared, there were already species that displayed intelligent behavior in the biological sense. Even viruses, which are usually not included in the category of living organisms, use their morphology to gain access to the host cell.” And so, conceptually, “we can say that in the trout example, the morphology has the role of a controller for the movement.”

A Very Clever Seed Indeed

It stands to reason that a “deeper understanding of morphological principles could therefore be very helpful in building more adequate bodies for robots.” Freyberg and Hauser thus turn to Exhibit B from Mother Nature: seeds of the genus Erodium. 

This curious seed has an unusual morphology that looks like a spiral. “When they fall to the ground, nothing happens until conditions are ideal. Only when it starts to rain do they react. The change in humidity affects the morphology and causes the spiral to unravel. At the same time, the unraveling bores the seed into the soil. In this case, the morphological properties of the seed have the ability to sense changes in moisture in their environment and then actively react by releasing the stored energy in the dried seed spiral.” Imagine how practical this high level of robustness would be in robotics!

The fact is, “even though the brain plays an important role in complex organisms, for some cases it can be too slow and, as a result, its intervention can be even counterproductive. For example, during the highly dynamic movement of walking or running, it is not the brain that is decisive as an instance of regulation, but the body schema. Instead of the brain controlling each muscle during walking (as in a conventional robot, for example), a combination of local and spinal neurons (outside of the brain) and morphological properties do most of the controlling.”

Spidey Sensing

Morphological properties also enable animals (humans included, of course) to translate nonlinear signals into more readily digestible information. They serve as a first filter, transforming complex environmental signals into linear data. “Morphology in this case is the first stage in the processing of information.” 

Take the spider’s web, for example. In addition to the basic task of catching flies, “it’s also used as a means of communication. It is speculated that the spider uses its web as a signal processor that takes over complex non-linear filter functions.” To be sure, “spider webs can be described as non-linear dynamic systems that take on the role of a non-linear filter. There, too, is an input signal (air vibration and the movement of a trapped insect) and an output signal (mechanical vibrations).”

As Freyberg and Hauser note, “One could say that part of the computational processes has been outsourced to the morphology. That is exactly the idea of morphological computation. In order to obtain better morphologies for robots that are multifunctional and sustainable (i.e. economical and robust), it is therefore necessary to understand more precisely how morphological parameters are used in nature. That is, mere imitation is not enough. The underlying principles of operation must be realized.”

Meanwhile, Back in Robotics

The approach used in “conventional, industrial robotics not only ignores the morphological aspects, but deliberately suppresses them. Non-linear, complex dynamics, underactuation and compliance are all attributes that make computational modeling more difficult and, therefore, control more complex. […] But it is precisely these properties that enable biological systems to implement complex non-linear functionalities through their morphology and thus to simplify the control.”

To be sure, morphological computation can “significantly reduce the complexity of the overall task for a robot and the brain/central computer now has to do less and can be less involved and focus on other more cognitive tasks. Often the effect of this deregulation is that the digital controller only needs to intervene at specific times. For example, when the task changes, when environmental conditions change, or when the disturbance forces become too great and additional energy is needed.”

New Design Principles of Robotics

Several design principles can be derived from the above examples. 

The Soft Principle. “The morphologies involved are mostly soft, flexible or compliant. This facilitates both the interaction between agent and environment and the exchange of energy between the two. As seen in the example of the spider web, soft structures can map more complex relationships between input and output. Softness also allows for the integration and storage of information over a limited period of time.” Check out EPFL colleague Jamie Paik’s work on soft robotics and her lab’s new piece in Nature on morphological flexibility in robotics systems. 

The Freedom Principle. “Not every single degree of freedom of the system (in our case the body of the biological system) is directly regulated by control signals. However, it is important to note that we are not talking about computation in the manner of a Turing machine, which is digital, but rather about analogue, continuous computation that depends also on environmental conditions. The idea that computational functionality is implemented directly in the morphology is often expressed by using the term morphological computation.”

The Outsource Principle. “The dynamic properties of morphology are often nonlinear and complex. In general, their complexity is proportional to the complexity that can potentially be outsourced to the morphological structure. In contrast, a simple, rigid arm of a conventional robot has relatively simple dynamics and is therefore capable of only static transformation at most. However, if the morphology has dynamic and non-linear properties, then in principle it is possible to implement non-linear and dynamic computations, which are far more interesting transformations. Dynamics in this context also means integration of information over time, thus implying a memory function.”

Where We Go From Here

What if a systematic approach existed to convert computational functionality directly into the corresponding morphology? Such an approach doesn’t exist so far, but the authors believe that some of the answers may come from soft robotics materials since they often exhibit nonlinear dynamics.

In any case, the search for answers is likely to take us beyond classical areas of robotics research, thus decentralizing the exploration further. Other areas of research “can now contribute new technologies and in turn can draw inspiration from robotics. This ranges from material science and chemistry to completely new fields such as synthetic biology or minimal biology. In addition, the strong growth of additive manufacturing technologies is also playing a crucial role for this new generation of robots.”

In sum, “there is indeed a profound change in orientation happening in the field of robotics, characterized by a widening of scope and a pluralization and hybridization of approaches and principles.” As the authors note, when it comes to conventional robotics, optimization is only possible in software, “whereas Morphological Computation additionally enables adaptation in the morphology.” If we can change “both aspects (software and hardware) in a robot, then a much greater variety of behavior can be achieved,” much like we find in nature.

To conclude, if morphological computation and soft robotics are integrated into more conventional robotics, and merged with artificial intelligence, then a “completely new generation of intelligent machines might arise. The question will be what these machines and devices will be used for, since this will also shape research agendas. For even if technical inspirations are increasingly derived from natural figures and phenomena, their products always embody social functions as well as specific goals and broader consequences.”

We are thus left with several pressing questions:

“How will the impact of new robots look like? Will they assist or rather constrain? Will we soon live in habitats oriented more to the needs of machinic intelligence (so-called ‘smart cities’)?

A Word of Warning from Habermas

This is where I return to my work at WeRobotics, which seeks to make the application of robotics more inclusive and equitable, as exemplified by Flying Labs. The tagline of WeRobotics is “The Power of Local.” It is essential that the pluralization of approaches and principles described above include robotics experts from and across the Majority World. So in the questions above, who exactly is the “We” here? Are we talking about the inclusive “we”? We the People? Or the “Royal We”? The exclusive “we” of the so-called “Global North”?

In Toward a Rational Society (1970), the German 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.”

But there’s no such thing as a purely technical problem when we bring robotics into society, which means that the solutions themselves cannot be technical alone. Solutions must be social, inclusive, plural, and diverse. As Freyberg and Hauser rightly conclude, “If we want to pose such questions seriously, the interrelations of epistemic and ethical, socio-political and technical, economic and ecological factors have to be taken into consideration, and need a more encompassing theoretical and political-epistemological understanding.”

Joining the Swiss Institute of Technology at EPFL

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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 co-organized and ran the first-ever international conference on medical cargo drones back in 2016 and just celebrated this joint accomplishment in critical cargo drone logistics.

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. 

Moving on from WeRobotics, with Gratitude

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. 

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. 

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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.

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.

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. 

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.  

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. 

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.

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!

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.

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! 

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

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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.

WeRobotics for Humans in a Hurry

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.

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

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.

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.

Decolonizing Medical Cargo Drone Technology: Step 1

We’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Pfizer on an exciting project over the past 12 months. The project focused on using affordable, locally repairable, and locally owned cargo drones for the delivery of essential medicines to remote health facilities in the Dominican Republic. Local communities in the remote mountains of the Dominican Republic do not have regular access to healthcare services. This is not due to the lack of paved roads connecting their villages and local clinics to regional hospitals. Instead, it is the cost of local transportation that serves as the most significant impediment. This is particularly problematic when local clinics run out of medicines, or when they cannot test patient samples locally. When this happens, patients have to travel to the hospital in person. If the patient can afford the cost of local transportation, then getting to the hospital often requires a full day of travel due to the limited number of local transportation options. Taking a full day away from paid work and/or from supporting family is often not an option.

What’s more, some patients are too frail to travel on the back of motorbikes on bumpy and windy roads. This explains why some nurses at remote clinics have had to make the journey to the local hospital themselves when patient samples need to be dropped off and/or medicines picked up.

The final report on this project, which is available here (PDF), runs some 70+ pages long and represents the most detailed and most transparent publicly available report on cargo drones to date.

Pfizer partnered with WeRobotics and Dominican Republic Flying Labs to carry out autonomous cargo drone deliveries over six weeks in 2019. Dominican Republic Flying Labs is one of 25+ Flying Labs in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Flying Labs are local knowledge hubs run entirely by local experts who are trained, equipped, and supported by WeRobotics as needed. Since 2016, WeRobotics and Flying Labs have set up multiple cargo drone projects in Peru, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Nepal with reliable public health partners. WeRobotics also worked with VillageReach to set up a cargo drone project in the DRC and partnered with DR Flying Labs on earlier cargo drone projects in the Caribbean.

To learn from this direct, hands-on experience in cargo drones along with lessons learned from the broader cargo drone community, please see this peer-reviewed online training on medical cargo drones.

The purpose of the joint Pfizer-WeRobotics cargo drone project with DR Flying Labs was to test the following hypothesis: can affordable and locally-repairable cargo drones be operated locally and ideally by health care professionals to reliably and autonomously deliver medicines on demand—much like any other medical instrument that is easy enough to use? As noted by the Ministry of Health Director for the El Valle Region, “This project is important in rural areas. With this project, people would have access to pharmaceuticals, lab tests, and other data in an expedited way because of the drone. This is an opportunity to extend to our people service at the right time at the right quality, warmth, and quickly as well.”

DR Flying Labs drone pilots, who were all trained on this affordable cargo drone solution by WeRobotics, carried out six weeks of consecutive deliveries in the province of San Juan de la Maguana between June and July 2019. A total of 101 autonomous flights were carried out to two separate health facilities, traveling a total of 994 kilometers. Of the 51 outbound flights, 40 carried medicines totaling 21.25 kilos. The drone had to gain an altitude of 784 meters above ground level. None of the risks identified at the outset of the project materialized thanks to active risk management and mitigation strategy developed by WeRobotics and DR Flying Labs. While there were several aborted deliveries due to weather, none of the 101 flights carried out over six weeks resulted in a crash or any material damage. Nepal Flying Labs has since carried out several hundred deliveries with the same cargo drone model for almost six months now. Philippines Flying Labs plans to use the same cargo drone model in early 2020.

The final report, which is available here (PDF), runs some 70+ pages long and represents the most detailed and most transparent publicly available report on cargo drones to date. The comprehensive report documents the full operations, technical solutions, and numerous lessons learned. It also presents concrete policy recommendations and presents a conceptual framework for complementary drone delivery models: the state model and the community model. We are becoming increasingly concerned that drone companies have to follow the “state model” to make a profit, i.e., they need to focus on high-frequency deliveries to areas with relatively large populations. In other words, their business models are not viable for the “community model” since smaller and more dispersed communities don’t require high-frequency deliveries. As such, we’re concerned that these smaller communities like those in the Dominican Republic are being overlooked even though they typically face the greatest health risks.

The state and community models are necessarily complementary, however, and should be combined into one holistic approach. This can be compared to “highways” versus “country roads,” for example. Leading drone companies are busy building “national highways” with their state-based delivery model, while others like WeRobotics are more interested in developing the “back roads” to serve the community model. Combining both models can provide the speed and geographical coverage necessary to ensure equal access, a duty of care, patient impact, cost-savings, resource optimization, and to improve healthcare outcomes at a truly national scale without discriminating against smaller and more dispersed populations. The business models for the state and community models have to be different. This project with Pfizer in the DR represents one step forward in developing and testing the business model for the community delivery model.

In sum, WeRobotics recommends that more operational data be generated to validate the community model and the corresponding business model fully. WeRobotics also recommends testing the use of both the state and community models in one country to evaluate overall impact since the implications of drone delivery should not be focused narrowly on specific technical models but broadly on the transformation of health care logistics. This requires a commitment of time, attention, and resources to see through.

As such, the economic data alone while a requisite is only one piece of the larger puzzle. The analysis must be more comprehensive and extended to include performance improvements, access, equity, patient outcomes, and of course, the transformation of health care logistics. The best way to get to that larger puzzle is by unpacking what is contained within the cost-benefit discussion. Are we sure we are accounting properly for costs? What are the associated costs of locally sustaining such systems? How will we determine those costs if markets are only minimally functional in this space? And more importantly, the benefits have to be understood broadly, systematically, and comparatively. What is the value of improved speed in critical logistics? How do we make sure that improved health outcomes are both understood in these projects and adequately accounted for in our understanding of financial benefit?

The goal isn’t to test these models for their own sake, but as a way to build a market. And for this, more data and learning is required.

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Acknowledgments:

We sincerely thank Pfizer, Dominican Republic Flying Labs, Centro de Innovación de Drones, Cyberpark of Santo Domingo, Ministry of Health, Aviation Authority (IDAC) as well as regional and local doctors and local communities in San Juan, El Coco and Montacitos for their partnership, leadership, and invaluable support. Sincerest thanks in particular to Jose Antonio Martinez, Jim Mangione, Orlando Perez, and Leonor Cocco for their partnership and support for the field tests. We would also like to thank Susie Truog from VillageReach for sharing her independent cost-benefit analysis for cargo deliveries in San Juan Province. Big thanks as well to all the participants, students, and volunteers who participated in the training and field tests.

Back to the Future: Drones in Humanitarian Action

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.

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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.