One of the world’s first drone delivery services is situated in the east African nation of Rwanda. Zipline is an U.S. startup, who is working with the Rwandan government to launch one of the world’s first fully commercial drone delivery services.
Its mission is to transport vital medical supplies to isolated hospitals by air. The company has flown more than 4,000 units of blood products, including red blood cells, platelets, and plasma, since December 2016.
Without these life-saving deliveries, hospitals would need to travel along dangerously tangled road networks through steep mountains, which costs precious hours in the race to save peoples’ lives.
27 year-old Abdoul Salam Nizeyimana, who studied engineering while in college, now serves as the lead technician for the project. He works tirelessly to launch and retrieve these self-flying planes. He helps package the blood packages in the drone’s delivery pod, and he manages the flight crew as they prepare for each launch.
The drone delivers the packages to the hospitals via parachutes, and then it immediately returns to the terminal. Nizeyimana oversees the complicated network of wires and robots that arrest the flight of the drone. Nizeyimana loves working with the start-up because of Zipline’s mission: to deliver blood to remote hospitals, helping doctors save their patients’ lives.
I love the business idea of using drones in a medical way; I would have never thought of it! I was aware of Amazon’s drone fleet that will deliver you your purchases, but I had never heard of this type of twist. I wonder if the service has any problems with losing the care packages after they parachute down. I would guess those packages might get caught in the wind. It will be interesting to see if this medical model thrives or not.
This is a great idea that makes the world a better place. Without this idea peoples lives would be at stake. This is a great example of using new technology to create better, more efficient ways of doing things. Also, the cost to transport by drone is most likely a lot cheaper and faster than any other way of transport.
Innovative solutions from entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of economic development. Entrepreneurial thinkers like this are the ones that will shape the brighter future for nations like Rwanda. Great example, Graham!