Webinar: Community Perception of Drones in Africa

On August 15th WeRobotics hosted a webinar entitled: “Witchcraft and Explosions: how do community perceptions to humanitarian drones differ in Tanzania and Malawi?” Alexander Fraser, who was recently a guest-author for our blog, spoke about his recent experiences shadowing the WeRobotics team in Zanzibar and a UNICEF team in Kasungu, conducting interviews with community elders, chiefs, matriarchs, village citizens, and district officials to assess their understandings of drones, or 'ndege'. Some of the goals of the research were to investigate which drone applications would benefit the local communities, what are their fears regarding drone use, and to identify sites where flying a drone would be considered inappropriate. At the end of the webinar, Alexander answered a handful of questions from the audience providing deeper insight into areas such as community sensitization to drones and strategies for approaching aviation authorities. 

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