Zipline to undertake blood drone trial in Tanzania funded by UK Government

Delivery of medical or humanitarian supplies is perhaps the only delivery drone use-case that makes sense. Well done to Zipline then for securing another trial.

The UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) is to fund the next trial in Tanzania.

A DFID spokeswoman told the BBC: “Flights are planned to start in early 2017, and when they do it is estimated that [the] UAVs could support over 50,000 births a year, cutting down the time mothers and new-borns would have to wait for life-saving medicine to 19 minutes – reduced from the 110 minutes traditional transport methods would take,”

I will have to admit that I was skeptical of one-way delivery flights, Zipline seems to be proving me wrong. It will be interesting to see what end users have to say about these trials in a year’s time.