Two Africa-based commercial drone technology evangelists have been selected to join the advisory board of drone services company, DroneDeploy’s benefit programme for charities and non-profit organisations.

We have covered DroneDeploy’s Resilient Futures Technology Grant Program before, which is run by DroneDeploy.org, the company’s community social benefit foundation.

The programme is focussed on fostering inclusion through facilitating situations where all communities have the necessary resources to build a resilient future; and enhancing outcomes for under-resourced populations by prioritising advocacy, safety, and efficiency through reality capture technology.

And it is this organisation with really noble intentions, that has appointed onto its board the managing director of Tanzania Flying Labs, Leka Tingitana, and Kat James, the Nairobi-based founder of drones for good consultancy, Four Hundred Feet.

James is a drone consultant and educator who has been working at the intersection of global health and emerging technologies for the past decade. Her career has spanned from designing a maternal health data dashboard for the Ministry of Health in Ghana to mapping thousands of villages in Liberia and Zambia to see how far women must travel to access reproductive healthcare services.

She has also previously led the UAV for Payload Delivery Working Group, and currently serves on the advisory board for the Commercial UAV Expo, where she helps oversee their Path to Leadership Scholarship Program.

“Joining the advisory board for DroneDeploy’s Resilient Future Grant is a unique opportunity to support non-profits at the forefront of using drone technology for social good,” James said.

“I’m excited to help support initiatives that use drone technology to build a more resilient and sustainable future and help protect vulnerable communities. This grant will provide critical funding and software licenses to non-profits addressing vital issues like disaster preparedness and climate resilience.”

Tingitana, meanwhile is a fifteen-year veteran of development projects in Africa whose current work has involved collecting and analysing geospatial drone data for disaster mitigation, health, conservation, agriculture, and more importantly training others to do the same.

He is the managing director of Tanzania Flying Labs, the Tanzanian leg of WeRobotics’ Flying Labs network.

As it happens, it seems Tingitana has come to the right place joining the resilient futures programme, as its main focus is to render funding to non-profit projects that include drone application and data collection in disaster preparedness or recovery; climate resilience and adaptation; food security and sustainable agriculture; environmental pollution monitoring; and indigenous land rights and safety.

“Our fund invests in organisations exploring innovative and novel approaches to build resilient futures,” DroneDeploy.org says on its website.

“We seek to support organisations that improve the built and natural environment, where reality capture technology is inherent in the solution.

“Our grants range in size from $10,000 to $20,000 and are given as unrestricted funding. Recipients will also receive up to five DroneDeploy product licenses and product support to help them use technology in their program work.”

Last year, the programme worked with the Youth Employment Service (YES) in South Africa; Mzansi Aerospace Technologies and the City of Ekurhuleni to map a large informal settlement; training a group of over 40 youth not only how to fly a drone, but also how to analyse the data collected using the DroneDeploy platform.

They were also in Malawi, where they worked with park authorities at Kasungu National Park to look after the new herd of 150 elephants that got resettled in 2015.

That is aside from the other programmes that have benefitted several operations outside Africa.

The other members of the board are Jackie Dujmovic of Hover UAV; Richard Adams from Taskforce Kiwi; and Brendan Schulman, now at Boston Dynamics, but whom many in the drone community will remember for his stint at the American offices of DJI.

Applications are now open for this year’s beneficiaries; and they close on September 15 this year. Please visit their page to see if your organisation meets the qualification requirements.

We hope it will not be too late.