Techno experts drawn from across the globe assembled Tuesday at the University of Nairobi to discuss the possibility of using drones to boost agricultural production and distribution of medicines to rural and remote African regions.
Speaking at the event that is under the Google think thank project ‘Solve for X’, Kola Masha, the MD of Doreo Partners, an agriculture-focused African impact-investing firm, detailed out how the technology could be utilized to generate 1 million agricultural jobs by 2025.
Masha said that the rising number of unemployed youth needs innovative methods of creating employment. He suggested the use of drones and advanced satellite mapping as an answer to the problem.
According to Asel Sartbaeva, Royal Society University Research Fellow, using the technology will promote health services particularly in remote regions where medicines take a long time to reach their destination because of transportation problems.
She further noted that about 40-percent of vaccines become deactivated while enroute their preferred destination since they have to be refrigerated during transportation.
Because of this, a large number of children are dying from preventable diseases. Sartbaeva’s solution for this problem is to use Silica to coat the vaccines. The solution is a novel technology for preserving medicines being transported to especially remote areas.
During the presentation, Sara Menker, the founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, a company that utilizes big data to enable worldwide food security, mentioned the need to make use of algorithmic data platforms to make food globally cheap and plentiful.
Google launched ‘Solve for X,’ which is a think tank project, in 2012 to stir up collaboration that would solve global issues.
