Learning Together Keeps Us Together

One of the most compelling aspects of network approaches such as our Glocalization Model is how they hold together the power of the one and the power of the many. This balance echoes the spirit of ubuntu: “I am because you are.” Each person is self-determining, the expert of their own life, the only one who knows best what they need and desire; yet it is only through individual power that we can have collective power, and it is only through collective power that we can have individual power. The two sit on a scale that balances itself, ideally in a kind of homeostasis.

The Flying Labs Network embodies this — the power of the one and the power of the many. Each Flying Labs is independent, pursuing its own priorities and responding to its own community. Together, they form an interdependent system built on knowledge sharing and collaboration. This interdependence is sustained by an infrastructure intentionally designed to keep knowledge moving, circulating like blood through a living body. Shared knowledge is the lifeblood of the Network: it connects, nourishes, and creates possibilities that could not exist in a system where information is hoarded and used as power.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration are the Network’s core tenets, a practice central to how it functions. Every time a Flying Labs documents an activity — whether it’s a project, training, or event — and shares what they did, experienced, and learned, that contribution becomes part of the collective record. These stories take many forms. Some are designed for members of the Network exclusively, in formats such as coffee chats and internal webinars, with access hosted on the Network's internal knowledge sharing platform. Externally, Flying Labs share through blog posts, use cases, Story Maps, videos, and podcasts. All are hosted on the Flying Labs website, which has grown into a repository of knowledge accessible to anyone interested in how local experts in the Global South are using drones, data, and AI for social good. 

This is not a small achievement. For too long, countries in the Global South have been left out of global conversations, often because of “a lack of data.” The assumption has been that too little is known about what is happening locally to even begin making decisions. The repository that is the Flying Labs Network website counters that narrative. Through it, local experts say, “We are here, we are working, we are changing things, and this is how.”

Like any good repository, its value grows with time. A Swahili proverb says, haba na haba hujaza kibaba: “little by little fills the pot.” As one example, each Flying Labs is only required to share two blog posts a year, but as the Network grows, a little is added at a time by willing hands bringing what they have, and it accumulates into something extraordinary. After, say, 10 years, what emerges is not just a collection of knowledge but the story of the Network told in real time, with each Flying Labs adding its voice. The Network becomes its own chief storyteller.

Knowledge sharing, however, does not stop at the website. With support from the WeRobotics community coordination team, Flying Labs also meet regularly in regional calls and sector expertise hubs — virtual collaboration spaces centered around a sector topic such as disaster risk management or agriculture. These spaces create direct connections, paving the way for collaborations that might otherwise never have formed. Through this horizontal collaboration by geographical region and vertical collaboration by sectoral expertise across the Network, Flying Labs discover shared challenges and exchange approaches. They replicate use cases from Flying Labs on the other side of the world, reshape them for their communities, and launch joint projects, pooling resources and expertise. In difficult times, they lean on one another. 

Even in a world of digital connection, meeting face to face still matters. On regional and global Flying Labs Network retreats, Flying Labs come together to connect in-person to share experiences, co-create the path forward, and strengthen their bonds with one another as only shared food and laughter can. Following the last global retreat in 2022 and regional retreats in 2023 and 2024, the WeRobotics team and Flying Labs from across the globe now look forward to meeting again in January 2026 in Pune, India.

So why are collaboration and knowledge sharing so vital to the Flying Labs Network?  They make learning together possible — and learning together keeps us together. The result is collective strength that far surpasses what any individual Flying Labs could achieve alone. Beyond the exponential impact, however, there is something more human at the heart of it all. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe wrote:

And this is why the Network thrives: because it is good to come together.