Medical Delivery Drones in Public Health Online Course

We have fully updated this online training to include the latest key developments!

This comprehensive update adds more than 25% of new content to the existing online training. More specifically, we have created new dedicated sessions to ensure that participants remain fully up to speed on the drone delivery space in public health. These key updates include:

• New evidence of supply chain problems
• New Cargo drone technologies
• New and continuing technical limitations 
• New operational delivery drone deployments 
• New lessons learned and best practices
• New insights on cost benefit analyses
• New conclusions on business models
• New studies and reports on delivery drones

These key updates are conveyed through:

• New fully customized slide deck of 150+ slides 
• Total of 6 new fully customized video presentations (around 15 minutes each)
• Over 20 new supporting videos (e.g., delivery drones in action, lessons learned, etc)
• Over 100 new high-resolution photos (e.g., cargo drone projects, lessons learned, etc)
• Over 20 new diagrams, charts, tables, studies, articles and reports

The training is a self-paced course which means anyone can join at any time. The course is led by video presentations and facilitated on a weekly basis by WeRobotics and guest experts through a dedicated online forum. Recommended readings are provided and are optional. Participants will need to follow the video presentations, participate in the online forum and complete 1 short assignment in order to successfully complete the course. While participants may join the course at any time, they must successfully complete the course within 3 months to receive a certificate of completion. This certificate will be signed by MIT, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and WeRobotics.

To get the most out of the course, participants should plan to dedicate up to 12 hours in total, comprising video presentations, 1 short assignment and recommended readings (optional). That said, the course can also be completed within 8 hours.

The course does not require prior knowledge of cargo drones or expertise in public health. The course is well suited for participants from the following sectors:

• Governments that want the very latest insights, lessons learned and best practices on how to implement, enable and/or evaluate the safe, responsible and effective use of medical cargo drones for public health.
• International Governmental Organizations like the UN, World Bank and others that want the very latest insights, lessons learned and best practices on how to implement, enable and/or evaluate the safe, responsible and effective use of medical cargo drones for public health.This course is also well suited for participants from international organizations that are starting to introduce medical cargo drones.
• International and National Non-Governmental Organizations like the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and others that want the very latest insights, lessons learned and best practices on how to implement, enable and/or evaluate the safe, responsible and effective use of medical cargo drones for public health. This course is also well suited for participants from non-governmental organizations that have already started to introduce medical cargo drones.
• Medical technology companies and pharmaceutical companies that want objective insights, lessons learned and best practices on how to implement, enable and/or evaluate the safe, responsible and effective use of medical cargo drones for public health. This course also provides expert guidance on how to select the best applications of cargo drones and how to carry out cost benefit analyses to understand the cost implications and performance improvements. And addition, this course is well suited to those health companies that have already partnered on cargo drone field trials.
• Drone companies and startups that want the very latest insights, lessons learned and best practices on how to implement, enable and sustain the safe, responsible and effective use of medical cargo drones for public health. This course provides expert guidance on cost structures, business models and sustainability strategies. This course is also well suited for participants from companies that have already started to introduce medical cargo drones.
• Academic institutions and think tanks including universities, schools and research institutes that want the very latest insights, lessons learned, best practices and policy implications on the use of medical cargo drones for public health. This course is also well suited for that have already started to research the use of cargo drones in public health, particularly from a policy perspective.

Dr. Patrick Meier served as Executive Director of WeRobotics. He is an internationally recognized expert on Humanitarian Technology and holds a Remote Pilot License (RePL). Over the past 17 years, Patrick has worked in the Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, India, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Morocco, Western Sahara, Haiti, Peru, Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Cameroon, Northern Ireland and a dozen other countries. This work comprised a wide range of humanitarian technology projects with multiple international organizations including the United Nations, Red Cross and World Bank. In 2010, Patrick was publicly praised by President Clinton for his pioneering humanitarian technology deployments, which he continues to this day at WeRobotics.

Patrick leads two sector programs at WeRobotics: Public Health and Humanitarian Aid. On the former, Patrick has designed, spearheaded and/or coordinated a number of operational medical cargo drone projects for public health since 2016. This has included delivery drone deployments and trainings in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, Dominican Republic, Nepal, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Cameroon. In addition, Patrick has co-authored the most detailed and transparent reports on delivery drone deployments for public health. He also spearheaded the development of the Code of Conduct for the use of cargo drones in public health.

Patrick also co-authored the most comprehensive report on humanitarian drones which was commissioned by ECHO: “Drones in Humanitarian Action: A Guide to the Use of Airborne Systems in Humanitarian Crises” and authored the report “Humanitarian UAV Missions: Towards Best Practices” and a chapter on “Humanitarian UAVs,” for an important Primer by the New America Foundation. Patrick’s book, Digital Humanitarians, has been praised by experts from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, UN, Red Cross, World Bank, USAID, DfID, NetHope and others.

Patrick has received fellowships from MIT Solve, Stanford, Harvard, Rockefeller Foundation, UBS Global Visionaries, UNICEF Innovations and National Geographic. His innovative projects have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC News, UK Guardian, The Economist, Forbes & Times Magazines, New Yorker, NPR, Newsweek, Wired, Mashable, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Nature, New Scientist, Scientific American & elsewhere. Patrick is also an internationally sought-out speaker, having given well over 200 talks in more than 20 countries across 6 continents. He has spoken at the Obama White House, UN, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Skoll World Forum, Club de Madrid, Mobile World Congress, Web Summit, PopTech, National Geographic, Thinking Digital, TTI/Vanguard, SXSW and 5 TEDx’s. His influential blog iRevolutions has received well over 2 million hits.

Patrick is also a distinguished scholar with a PhD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from Stanford University, an MA from Columbia University and was a visiting student at UC Berkeley. In addition, Patrick was a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and holds certificates in Complexity Science from both the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI). He has taught several professional, graduate and undergraduate courses.

Patrick was born and raised in Africa.

More on LinkedIn.

An earlier version of this training was given in person to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Atlanta and CDC Papua New Guinea (PNG) along with leading public health experts in PNG and the region including representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. Sincerest thanks to all participants for their active engagement and questions during this training in early 2019. These have informed the further development of this online course. Many thanks also to Dr. Timothy Amukele, Dr. Andrew Schroeder and Sid Rupani for their kind feedback on earlier versions of this course. In addition, we would like to recognize and thank The Rockefeller Foundation and the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (DFAT) innovationXchange (iXc) for their kind support in the development of our online courses. The entire WeRobotics Engineering Team also provided important feedback on earlier version of this training. Their technical expertise was thus directly integrated within this online course. Our sincerest thanks also go to donors, non-governmental organizations and cargo drone companies for providing us with the content we kindly requested for this training along with answers to our many questions, particularly in terms of udpates. Last but certainly not least, we would like to thank Meronne Teklu for taking the lead in designing and implementing our online training strategy.

• Government/Industry: USD 299
• NGOs/Academia: USD 199

• Scholarships available: discounted price of USD 50 (apply here)
• Course is free to members of Flying Labs

Start the course here!

Praise from recent participants

“This training is practical, based on actual facts and field data. No one should start a drone cargo delivery project without this training. It will remove a LOT of trial and error costs.”

“This is the most explicit, and well-resourced cargo drones delivery curriculum in the healthcare sector I have ever seen.”

“A course so well designed and straight from the experience, thoroughly engaging and thought provoking, challenging norms and offering sustainable solutions to healthcare accessibility gaps – a must do course for anyone who is considering creating an ecosystem for drones for healthcare.”

“The course is essential to get started in the humanitarian world of cargo drone medical deliveries in developing countries.”

“A key resource to understand the implications and complexities of cargo drones and very useful to start new projects with these technologies.”

“This training was awesome. It was very genuine in providing the solution for the public health problems in most of the inaccessible areas. I recommend it for the one who wants to save the community public health.”

“The course was very informative especially with case studies it really nailed it. I also like the challenge of doing some extra research or reading, it makes it engaging one has a personal take home. Now more details to the use of cargo drones I can share with various stakeholders to empower them for better choices for the future.”

“This will be useful for my work. I am now more confident in exploring how to use drones to help under-served communities.”

“This course has come to me at perfect timing. When my interest in drones was high. But being in a geospatial discipline, I thought drones were only useful for mapping. I am glad that this course has enlightened me on how drones can be used to save lives in communities with desperate public health needs.”

“The course is authentic and builds on the extensive experience of WeRobotics and the work of Flying Labs. It encapsulates the challenges, opportunities, and considerations in the field of cargo drones. Dr. Patrick Meier, an authority in this work, again shines through making firm assertions on a bottom up power of local framework that is real to local context. The analogy between Star Trek and Star Wars summarizes this very well. The findings between political and economic prowess of the Global North versus the development challenges of the Global South are expressed in a balanced and objective way, which I like. I would like to see more of such training offered.”