Our mission is to use drones for good.

africanDRONE is a South African registered NPO that I co-founded in early 2018 together with the generous support of Code For Africa. We believe that drones -- on land, in the air, and under the sea -- give citizens powerful new ways to better understand their world and to improve public accountability.

africanDRONE seeks to empower local pilots through a self-help network that offers seed funding, skills development, resource sharing, advocacy, and networking opportunities for members. We are a proud partner of the 2020 African Drone Forum.

RESOURCES

 

Commissions / Editorial / Partnerships

We support African tech startups and entrepreneurs building drone-based businesses. We support and empower African drone pilots and storytellers. And we support civic institutions that use drones for democratic, knowledge-building or socially progressive initiatives.

We do this through a variety of means - we helped to organize the African Drone Forum and Lake Kivu Challenge, a forum and drone delivery competition funded by the World Bank. We have supported large-scale drone mapping activities in Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa. We disburse direct story grants, and provide production support on a variety of multimedia projects. And we convene catalyzing groups of drone enthusiasts from all regions of Africa in gatherings like the 2020 World Bank African Drone Youth Scholars program.

We have been featured in a variety of national and international media in Africa and beyond. We strive to produce excellent content with our deep networks of professionals in African and beyond.

The African Drone Youth Scholars in Kigali

africanDRONE Drone Journalism Training Event (Zanzibar, 2017)

africanDRONE Drone Journalism Training Event (Zanzibar, 2017)

The 2020 African Drone Forum, Lake Kivu Challenge, and Youth Scholars

The 2020 African Drone Forum Symposium & Expo, in Kigali, Rwanda, offers a platform for the drone industry, including global logistics experts, startups, drone pilots, engineers and media, to showcase their innovations and state-of-the-art technology for cargo drone deliveries, and to outline strategies for the future. The Forum’s core organizers were the World Bank Group and the Government of Rwanda.

The Lake Kivu Challenge is a series of challenges designed to help advance the safe implementation of electric cargo UAS transport, digital aviation solutions and related infrastructure in the Lake Kivu Region in Rwanda. Companies must fulfill the minimum requirements in order to participate in one or several of three competitions that are designed to push the boundaries and demonstrate the current state of electric VTOL UAS technology for African markets. 

The African Drone Youth Scholars program brought 21 young scholars and professionals, innovators and entrepreneurs to Rwanda to participate in the ADF2020 and receive training and networking from mentors and trainers. They were chosen by africanDRONE from over 400 applicants based on both their achievements and their potential.  They come from 11 different countries – one each from Ghana, DRC, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cote D’Ivoire, and Malawi: and 11 from the ADF host country, Rwanda.

africanDRONE Academy and Drone Camps

africanDRONE has an online academy with resources, videos, and techniques to upskill drone storytellers. We also conduct periodic drone camps which convene storytellers, experts, journalists and entrepreneurs together to participate in fun, fast-paced two-day meetings in various parts of Africa.

Our first drone camp, in Zanzibar, focused on drone mapping, drone journalism, and the africanDRONE ecosystem related to East Africa. We followed that up with a story camp held the following year in collaboration with Code For Africa, which focused on drone journalism and awarded several grants for storytellers to be able to unlock the use of drones in their newsrooms. Our most recent drone camp was in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, where we provided practical drone piloting instruction to citizen journalists.

Our work with the World Bank in organizing the Youth Scholars program at the African Drone Forum operated in a similar fashion to our Drone Camps. We had expert instructional techniques and business advice given from K15 Photos, George Mulamula, and UhuruLabs from Tanzania, MicroDrone from Kenya, Global Air Drone Academy from Nigeria, Integrated Aerial Systems from South Africa, and Yasser El-Ghamal, Country Director for Rwanda from the World Bank.