A drone services start-up is using its drone expertiseto solve land disputes in an informal settlement in Gabon’s capital city of Libreville; and probably saving a lot of lives in the process.
Based in the same capital, Africa Drone Engineering Services (ADIS) has been flying its drones over the Akébé Frontière district, mapping out the demarcations for houses that – according to a report from Africa News – were initially built without municipal approval; hence the chaos over boundaries.
But now, almost half a century after the settlement started sprouting, there could be a solution in sight, and is coming in the form of ADIS’s’ mapping drones.
"Land disputes are really part of our core business,” says Andy Boumah Yovo (29), who founded Adis in 2016. “Because unfortunately, during the establishment of a settlement, we do not yet have it in our culture to call a surveyor to come properly map out and reassure ourselves that where we are investing, is land that truly belongs to us. Very often you have areas, whether it is under-integrated neighbourhoods or areas like Agondjé (a residential area), where the building up has been so quick that land problems become quite frequent.”
ADIS provides a range of drone-based services besides mapping, which include inspection, aerial photography and GIS services. After completing his engineering studies in France, Andy returned home where he got a loan from his parents to venture into a passion that had grown on him while on attachment at one company in France.
“For my end-of-studies internship, I performed network engineering tasks for the company Axion Drone. It was the discovery of this activity that gave me the idea to create my own company offering the use of professional drones, both for simple photos and videos as well as for topographic studies or cartography.”
The enterprising Yovo adds that he spent the whole of 2016 getting himself a remote pilot licence and shuttling from one office to the next, trying to set up his company in an environment which he lamented was not designed to help start-up businesses.
The venture then properly first opened its doors for business in January 2017, as ADIS (short for Africa Drone Ingénierie Services), with a breakthrough coming in the form of the Gabonese Agency for the Development and Promotion of Tourism (Agatour).
Andy says he approached the agency’s director general and demonstrated what his drone could do for the country’s tourism through aerial imagery
“For my first contract, I went for it. I arranged to meet the Director General and I offered him my services. He trusted me, and that's how I made my first aerial photos and videos.”
Business started trickling in steadily after that including from international companies like the Bollore Group.
Their first year was not that bad, returning a turnover of about $17,000.
Earnings have been growing ever since. Already feeling a bit cramped and confined in their homeland, Adis has its eye on scoring big with the mines in the two neighbouring Congos, which Andy maintains have opportunities for aerial surveys and environmental impact studies.
“Gabon was an ideal country to get started: there is almost no competition and the needs can be important, but we do not intend to stop there. The Congolese markets have enormous potential; the DRC with its many open-pit mines and its vast forests, and the Republic of the Congo in the oil sector.”
For now, though, the start-up has its hands full setting peace in it home city through its mapping services.