Klaudyna Wrochna - Shifting the Power to Local Drone Experts (Drones for Social Good)Apply to Speak

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Shifting the Power to Local Drone Experts

Welcome everyone to this enlightening discussion on the significance of leveraging local expertise in the drone industry. Today, we dive into various aspects centring around the localized power of drone knowledge. This discussion will highlight the Flying Labs Network, the importance of local, the non-profit organization that endeavours toward this cause, and hopes to encourage a vibrant discussion among us all.

About the Speaker

Claudina Ka Brogna, our speaker today, hails from Poland and stands as an ardent drone expert. Since her graduation in 2015, Claudina has been riveted by drones and their data. She has had the chance to work at CERN, the European organization for Nuclear Research, making it one of her most influential experiences.

The Power of Local Drone Experts

Our discussion today shifts the spotlight to the local drone experts and Flying Labs. Essentially, Flying Labs are local robotics expert hubs situated in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These hubs allow home-grown thought leaders to connect, build on each other’s knowledge, and devise innovative solutions for social challenges using tools like drones, data, and AI.

Flying Labs and Its Global Impact

Flying Labs currently spans over 30 countries, with around ten additional hubs included each year. They use a franchise model, allowing each hub to have their independence and unique competencies.

Yet, its most significant impact lies in how these hubs localize expertise. They pave the way for local change-makers to become drone and AI experts. Through dedicated programs, training, competitions, tools, and resources, they accelerate the network’s impact and drive inclusive growth.

Shifting Power to Local Experts

The experts at flying labs possess extensive local knowledge, knowing well the local language, culture, and challenges. All of this empowers them to resolve these challenges far more effectively. The overarching goal here is to shift power to local experts, facilitating them to make big changes through small steps.

Wi Robotics: The Organization Behind the Mission

Wi Robotics is the non-profit organization driving this mission. With no commissions on any of the Flying Labs projects, it fosters an inclusive network of flying labs, and creates environments that allow local experts to thrive.

Measuring Impact

  • Increased gender diversity is one measurable impact with 28% of the Flying Labs represented by women, a significant progress compared to the 13% industry benchmark.
  • The impact is also measured based on the number of participants involved, the number of people trained, and the types of stakeholders they interact with.
  • The independent nature of these Flying Labs also allows them to contribute uniquely to the network's success.

Project Examples Showcasing Impact

Several projects have illustrated the considerable local and global impacts:

  1. Population Relocation: Panama Flying Labs conducted a project on population relocation due to sea level rise.
  2. Flood Mapping: Senegal Flying Labs used drones for rapid flood mapping in Senegal.
  3. Sea Level Monitoring: Panama Flying Labs monitored sea level rise and proposed plans to mitigate its effects.
  4. Farm Boundaries and Harvest Production Predictions: Tanzania Flying Labs used drones to predict harvest production and identify farm boundaries.

In conclusion, leveraging local drone expertise can lead to tremendous benefits and positive impacts at the local and even the global level. Feel free to connect and engage in this topic further.


Video Transcription

So uh welcome everybody. My name is Clona. And the topic of my presentation is shifting the power to local drone experts uh or local experts in general, but drone experts in particular, since this is what we work, what we work with.Um and the agenda uh will cover 55 different parts. So the first one is a short introduction about me. The second part is uh about the flying labs, the network of flying labs who they are um what they do and how it all works. Uh Then I will talk about the part of local and then I will move on to uh talking about our non nonprofit organization robotics that I work for and I hope it to be more of a discussion. So feel free to post your questions or comments in the chat and I will be happy to answer any of your questions at the end. Uh Let me just check very, very quickly. If you can hear my, you can see my screen. OK? Not my presentation. Sorry about that. So let me try again to share screen shifting the power. OK? Sorry, you should be able to see it now. So all you missed is the the intro light, right? So, so good now it is good. Great, perfect. Thank you so much. So, that was the agenda. That's all you have missed so far. And then um so let's start with a quick introduction. Um My name is Claudina Ka Brogna. I come from Poland and I am a drone expert. Um I graduated in 2015.

Um And since I started my career, I've been involved with drones and working with drone data. Um One of my most important I would say or most uh the coolest experiences uh uh as a drone pilot was working at CERN uh which is a European organization for nuclear, nuclear Research. And then uh at the beginning of last year, I joined uh my nonprofit organization uh as uh a drone and data system specialist. Uh I also fly drones for fun uh as a first person view pilot. So it's really, it's really a passion for me. So because we have an inspirational day today, I wanted to share just um two thoughts um that really defined my, my career so far. And first, uh the first one is allow your passion to become your purpose and it will one day become your profession. It may sound a bit like a cliche, but it really worked for me. And I realized it is easier said than done. But my uh journey with drones really started from uh drums being my passion. And then one day it just became my full time job, which I'm very grateful for. And then the second um thought is small steps lead to big changes.

So I um I realized that it takes baby steps to uh it got, it took baby steps to get where I am and it took a lot of effort, but I always chose to prioritize fun and creativity. And that's, that's where I ended up. So, all right. So enough, enough about me, I'm not here to talk about myself. I am here to talk about the stars of the show which are the, the flying labs and the local experts. Um So let me first answer the questions, what are flying labs and what they do and uh why they exist. So local uh flying labs are local uh robotics expert hubs that are located in Africa, Asia and Latin America. And they allow local experts to as change makers to come together uh connect with each other, build on existing expertise in drones, data and artificial intelligence. Um And the flying labs address social challenges. Um They do it locally and they use drones, they a I to do it and they accelerate the positive impacts um in their local communities and they also contribute and build local markets, creating jobs. Um And uh yeah, grow together. So the network uh currently covers 30 more than 30 countries all around the world and it is organically growing. So um about 10 new Flying globs are added each year to the network. Um And it works like a franchise model.

Um You may have noticed that something may be off with this map that I have on the screen. And that's because it's upside down, we kind of like to uh so in this way, to emphasize how unevenly uh the opportunities and the power is distributed throughout the world, right? So uh let's talk about the power of local, why it is important. In fact, the technical capacity in the local countries in the global South, it already exists. There are tons of brilliant experts. Uh They have the local knowledge, they have the the great advantage over international experts of knowing the local language, knowing the local culture and uh first and foremost, knowing the challenges because this is where they grew up, this is what they observed since um since childhood.

So who is best placed than um or better placed than these local experts to tackle these challenges and to to solve them? Um And you may be wondering what is this girl coming from Europe? Know about the power of local and you, you may be right? Um Maybe let's let's let the local experts speak for themselves and explain what is the power of local. Um Let's talk about robotics. I will briefly introduce what it is because you've seen the uh logo appear from time to time. This is the nonprofit uh organization that I work for uh with the mission of shifting the power to local experts, with local knowledge and live experience. There we go, the lights are back. OK, great. Um So what we do, we do not take commissions on any of the flying labs projects whatsoever. Uh We core and facilitate the inclusive network of the flying labs and uh we create the environment that enables local experts to thrive. Uh what we do essentially comes down to these three activities we localize. Uh we accelerate and share. So we localize the expertise through the flying labs network. Um And then the flying labs enable local change makers to become drone and A I experts. Uh Then the second element is we accelerate the network's impact through dedicated programs training, uh enabling Direct South to South collaboration and uh through competitions uh tools and resources, et cetera.

And then finally, we share the knowledge uh and convince stakeholders uh through the global community and uh we facilitate the global ecosystem, right? So let's talk about the theory of we need the power of local. All right. So what we recognize is that it is not about the robots, it's about the people, the people who gets to use them. Uh It's about the power and that is the motivation of shifting the power to local experts in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Um I thought that this graphic would be interesting for you. Um, so I pulled it out from our impact page and that ties, uh, quite nicely to the question that appeared in the chat. How do we measure the impact? I encourage you to check out the website, the wi robotics or flying labs website. And you will see, um, quite a lot of very interesting numbers. One of them is the number of women who make up, uh, the flying laps and that is 28%. Currently, we're working towards increasing this number obviously, but it is still a great um achievement compared to the industry benchmark, which is 13%. All right. So, um like I promised, I, we have some time for questions. So I will be happy to, to answer any of your questions.

And I know that there's already one in the chat. How do we measure the impact? Um That is a great question. We work directly with the flying labs. We uh mostly just hear from them about their projects. We always ask them after they organize their projects. Um How many participants were involved? Uh how many women were involved, how many people they trained? Uh what kind of stakeholders they um they uh interfered with. So, so we, we always directly want to hear from the flying labs. Uh and the flying labs, these groups are independent.

So they are not dependent on robotics or on each other in any way, they may have different expertise, they may have different backgrounds, different teams. And uh and that is what's great also because that enables sharing them collaboration. So what we always want to want to do is follow their work and see how they can um uh also uh how they can contribute to the success of the entire network. Um It is, it is a lot of work to measure impact. It is true, it's always easy. Um It is uh you know, part of our, a big part of our everyday job, but uh we do our best and um what I can do is just show you very quickly what we um maybe let me, let me share the screen again, lots of back and forth. And also the two websites, the video, robotics.org and the Flying labs.org. Both of these websites contain um some impact numbers. So um some interesting numbers you can go through. Do you have any other questions or comments? What do you guys think? Thank you, Lena. Thanks for the question.

So, um I thought I would also include a couple of examples of the projects that the Flying Labs do. Um We have three minutes left. I see no questions in the no more questions in the chat. So let me just go through the rest of the slides. So some examples include uh population relocation due to sea level rise. This was this project was realized by Panama Flying Labs. Then another example is uh flood mapping in Senegal. By the team of Senegal flying labs and that had to be done rapidly. This is where drones are very handy. Um One more example is uh again, Panama Flying labs, they were measuring um or monitoring the sea level rise and um coming up with a plan uh to mitigate the effects of the sea level rise. So you can see on the graphics on the r uh the models that were derived from a drone and the the level of the water that would raise. Um One more example is uh Cote d'ivoire Lime Labs. Uh They worked on enabling the certification for cocoa cooperates um uh locally. Uh So for, in order to do this, they required to have a local, very precise maps that um don't always uh that are not always accessible or available for them. Um Nepal Flying Labs was working on uh some very interesting projects and one of them was estimating the dumping site volume uh to be able to come up with a plan. Uh Then Tanzania Flying Labs was working on farm boundaries and harvest production predictions.

Sorry, there are tons and tons of applications. Again. Panama Flying Labs was mapping was using drones to map um and identify mosquito breeding drugs uh to be able to increase health and um uh prevents um uh diseases caused by mosquitoes. Uh During the COVID pandemic. Um Peru Flying Labs was working on estimating the density of local community. And then finally, one more example from the power flying labs who used the lockdown and the opportunity to, to map the entire valley as you know, uh the Kathmandu Valley was um was uh highly impacted by earthquakes before. Uh are you able to track people and migration? Um It is very hard to track people. There is always um the question of privacy and ethics that we always take into account. So um while it may be possible to use drones to aid in this application, I don't think they are entirely um they can be used entirely to, you know, to map um and track people and uh migration. But it is possible to use it for some applications like uh for Peru Flying Labs, right? Uh local um community density estimation. So thank you so much for joining everybody and uh apologies for the technical issue.

I hope you enjoyed the presentation, feel free to connect with me uh on linkedin and um enjoy the rest of the sessions.