Fon Mathuros, Head of Media, World Economic Forum: Tel.: +41 (0)79 201 0211; Email: fma@weforum.org
Amanda Russo, Public Engagement Lead, World Economic Forum: Tel.:+1 415 734 0589; Email: arus@weforum.org
· Andhra Pradesh will be the first state in India to pilot the newly launched Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit – a user-manual for governments wanting to scale drone delivery
· 10 Civil Aviation Authorities from five continents, eight international governmental organizations and 23 private companies contributed to its development
· It highlights the real-world success of projects from Switzerland, Rwanda
· Access the toolkit here
· For more information on our Annual Meeting, please visit www.weforum.org.
Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 25 January 2019 – India will be the next destination for the drone revolution as the state Andhra Pradesh gears up to pilot the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit.
The State Government of Andhra Pradesh announced at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 2019 that it will start testing the policy frameworks developed in the newly released Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit to enable state-wide drone delivery operations.
“Andhra Pradesh is proud to be the first government partner to implement the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit,” said Lokesh Nara, Minister for Information Technology and Rural Development in Andhra Pradesh. “We look forward to leveraging the insights from the toolkit to implement a drone delivery program that will bring key medical supplies to communities across our State.”
The open source guide from the World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation, was also launched at the Annual Meeting 2019 in Davos. It was developed after extensive collaboration with the government of Rwanda, the government of Switzerland and leverages the work of the Drone Innovator’s Network (DIN). It is the first user manual for governments looking to roll out socially impactful, advanced drone operations.
This open source collection of lessons-learned was designed to help governments overcome the hurdles of implementing drone regulations and accelerate access to airspace, while maintaining safety and security. It also includes specific steps for governments, interested in implementing similar programmes, to consider.
“Safe, clean, inclusive and scaled drone use has become the goal of many nations,” said Harrison Wolf, report author and project lead at the Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “Now, governments can learn from the real-world success of world leading drone delivery projects in Africa and Europe to develop their own national oversight. Through comparative analysis of shared lessons, learned by governments and private players, this toolkit means governments don’t have to start from scratch and can begin societally important, socially responsible operations. We are really looking forward to the initializing of the pilot project in India.”
“When Rwanda pioneered the performance-based regulatory model last year, it signaled our country’s strong interest in using drones beyond healthcare service delivery and expanding the drones industry” said Paula Ingabire, Minister of ICT and Innovation, Government of Rwanda. “Our partnership with the Forum and the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit reflect Rwanda’s path-breaking strategy to scaling the drones ecosystem. We will continue to accelerate the implementation of drone technologies in key sectors”.
“I am very proud that Switzerland and my authority are part of the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit,” said Christian Hegner, Director General of Swiss Civil Aviation Authority (FOCA). “In 2020, the Swiss FOCA will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) authorization. We learnt a lot during these past years. Sharing our expertise and learning from other countries will help accelerating and scaling safe drone operations worldwide.”
“For over two years, Zipline has been the world’s largest provider of drone delivery services, and we were happy to contribute our experience to the development of the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit,” said Will Hetzler, Co-Founder, Zipline. “This is an important resource that will help governments to enable lifesaving operations like drone delivery of health products. We are excited to continue working with the Forum through the Drone Innovators Network to realize this technology’s transformational potential for the world.”
"We are honored to be a founding member of the Drone Innovators Network and a contributor to the Advanced Drone Operations Toolkit," said Ben Marcus, Co-founder and Chairman at AirMap. "AirMap is actively partnering with regulators, airspace managers, and solutions providers to enable safe and accountable drone operations around the world. Our work in Switzerland provides an excellent example of what is possible today and shows a clear path for other governments to embrace similar programs."
The stories and information were captured first-hand by the World Economic Forum. The Drones and Tomorrow’s Airspace team spoke directly with policy-makers, entrepreneurs, regulators and technical experts who have fundamentally shifted the dialogue from what “may” be possible to what “is” possible, in a very short time. Insights and recommendations from the most successful projects outline what it takes to launch and oversee advanced drone operations.
New airspace regulations
It also introduces governments all over the world to a new approach to oversight created by the World Economic Forum Drone and Tomorrow’s Airspace community, the Performance Based Regulations (PBR). Using PBR, airspace can be accessed by any unmanned aircraft on a mission-specific basis: the government specifies the safety standard of the mission, and the drone operators specify how they are going to meet it. This regulation is agile. It cuts the time to access airspace and expands the range of possible applications while enabling the government to keep up with the rapid development of technology.
Rwanda’s implementation of PBR for all category of unmanned aircraft led directly to an increase in operations for its drone ecosystem, promoted expansion of domestic industry participants and will support the planned establishment of the upcoming drone operations decanter (DOC) activities.
About the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network
The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network brings together Governments, leading companies, civil society and experts from around the world to co-design and pilot innovative approaches to the policy and governance of technology. Its vision is to shape the development and use of technology in ways that maximize the benefits and minimize the risks. The network develops, implements and scales up agile and human-centred pilot projects that can be adopted by policy-makers, legislators and regulators worldwide.
Notes to editors
Watch live webcasts http://wef.ch/am19
Guide to how to follow and embed sessions on your website at http://wef.ch/howtofollow
View the best photos from the event at http://wef.ch/pix
Read the Forum Agenda at http://wef.ch/agenda
Become a fan of the Forum on Facebook at http://wef.ch/facebook
Watch Forum videos at http://wef.ch/video
Follow the Forum on Instagram at http://wef.ch/instagram
Follow the Forum on LinkedIn at http://wef.ch/linkedin
Learn about the Forum’s impact on http://wef.ch/impact
Subscribe to Forum news releases at http://wef.ch/news