Launching the Lake Victoria Challenge

The shores and islands of Lake Victoria are home to over 30 million people – the most densely populated rural area in the world. Due to rugged terrain, remote islands, and limited road networks of this area, vital health supplies and other urgent goods often face significant challenges in reaching their destination. In addition, accessing these areas after major disasters is equally challenging. Enabling cargo drones as a new mobility and delivery paradigm has tremendous potential to overcome such challenges - alleviating supply chain burdens and enhancing quicker delivery of services to potentially millions of people. The same is true for mapping drones, which can be used to quickly assess disaster damage in areas that are not otherwise accessible through conventional means.

The Lake Victoria Drone Expo & Challenge (LVC) will be the first of its kind in Africa. It will be held in October 2018 and will showcase advances in autonomous systems that can make a significant difference in hard-to-reach communities and rural areas. The event will include a technology challenge component designed by African experts for local use cases. The challenge itself will include cargo drone deliveries and mapping drone surveys.

We've been serving as consultants to the World Bank for the design of the event. This explains why the Managing Director of our Tanzania Flying Labs, Leka Tingitana, was invited to participate and speak at the public launch event of the challenge this week in Mwanza, Tanzania.