MamaBird, drones that nurture

Delivering lifesaving supplies to mothers and children in remote villages in developing countries using cost efficient heavy-lift drones.

The Problem

One of the biggest challenges for healthcare in remote villages in Africa is not the lack of low cost affordable solutions, but rather access to these solutions. People in rural areas do not have access to all seasons roads, which creates significant healthcare challenges to women and children. When I visited Africa for the first time, I was personally moved by the condition of women in the villages. Can you imagine having your whole life and role in society confined to child rearing and cooking for the family. Women and children have extremely limited access to resources. No transport, nowhere to go, no money and even if they can reach a market after a whole day of walking, there's nothing they can buy there to help their children.

Healthcare providers and disaster relief responders depend on costly, slow, and unreliable transportation by motorcycles, cars, helicopters and trucks to serve remote communities.

The Solution

To address this problem, we propose a network of cost efficient heavy-lift hybrid power drones that can reach villages as far as 37 miles from a health center and carry ten times the payload of traditional drones, about the size of a checked-in luggage.

This technology is a true game changer for the women and children awaiting any help to address their health challenges and the organizations trying to send these supplies to them.

MamaBird Instant Impact App

With MamaBird Instant Impact, sponsors can fund drone flights as they are requested. Rural health centers can place requests for supplies. Sponsors are presented with a list of requests and costs on a map. Once selected, the drone is loaded, the sponsors receives a picture of the drone being loaded. The sponsors can track the flight live on a map. Once the drone arrives at destination the drone takes a picture. The sponsor sees the drone being unloaded. That’s the kind of transparency that people expect today and that is the key to success to the widespread adoption of ICT4D solutions.

The Market and the Social Impact
More than two billion people lack adequate access to life saving medical products, such as clean birth kits and ready to use therapeutic food, due to challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure.

The transformative power of emerging technologies like cargo medical delivery drones can do for last mile logistics what mobile phones did for developing countries. It can leapfrog the cost of developing tradition infrastructure.

MamaBird wants to provide Iarge and small NGOs, government departments and other stakeholders in the healthcare space a platform to take vital lifesaving supplies to hard to reach communities. 

In a nutshell the combination of higher capacity drones, focus to efficiently deliver specific kits and the strong inclusion of women as part of the solution is what makes our solution innovative. Our advantages are that we can provide supplies when roads are in bad conditions, we can be more cost efficient because we fly in straight lines compared to ground vehicles that have to drive many more miles to get to the same location. Compared to other drone companies, our drones have the biggest payload and require less ground equipment, cutting costs by 2-5x compared to other providers.

Drones, the cloud, IoT and mobile apps are at the heart of our solution.

MamaBird uses drones that can lift a heavier load in one flight, making it more economic and efficient compared to other forms of transport carrying the same load over the same distance.

The MamaBird Instant Impact mobile app lets sponsors create instant impact by sending vital supplies to remote hard to areas. IoT and the cloud keeps all the data available to all stakeholders, live.

Mobile devices in remote areas used to place orders and request supplies from the drone center.

Over the next 12 months we aim to have completed our pilot testing phase and ready to launch a full service in Malawi with 20 drones and the MamaBird Instant Impact App.

We also aim to have a secured a few partnerships with international NGO's in the health space interested in connecting hard to reach areas with vital life saving supplies.

Scaling for us would be expanding operations to more locations with similar challenges. Making our drones more efficient, more cost effective, servicing longer distances. Increasing the amount of payloads and applications e.g foldable baby boxes for newborns with mosquito nets to prevent asphyxia and malaria, one dollar glasses so visually impaired children can attend classes, menstrual pads so that young girls do not have to miss school. Delivering vitamins and vaccines for pregnant mothers and newborns. We are also planning to service disaster scenarios where an area has been cut off by floods or earthquake.

Our customers will be International NGO's in the health care space, our beneficiaries are the people living in the remote areas without access to  vital supplies like Clean Birth kits or Ready to Use Therapeutic Food for malnourished babies.

We aim to build long term partnerships with these organizations by providing a solution to the logistics problem they face in reaching these hard to reach and often under-served areas.

Eventually as the solution evolves the end user in remote areas would also become customers by placing an order for x amount of supplies and paying via mobile money.

Currently none because we are at the pilot testing stage

In the next 12 months with a fully operational service with 20 drones we expect to be serving a population of at least 50,000 people. One of our drones can cover a radius of 60 km and carry 20 kg, enough capacity for over 50 clean birth kits, or 50 foldable baby boxes or 3 weeks of ready-to-use therapeutic food that solves malnutrition and stunting in newborns.

In three years with about 100 drones doing approximately 130,000 flights a year we hope to be reaching a a population of at least half a million people in remote areas.

Both Co-founders,have a strong tech background both being professionals in the drone space for 7 years combined. Thomas has 4 years of experience running a drone hardware and software venture out of Washington, DC serving thousands of international drone customers. 

Eugene grew up in Malawi and has first-hand knowledge of the living conditions of mothers and children in Africa. He has run a drone mapping and consulting business in Malawi for over 3 years working with drone applications of mapping in agricultural, sustainable forestry and flood mapping with a specific focus on climate-change resilience for rural people

Our main model is a pay per number of flights model with cost depending on distance and weight. For some customers, we will offer a subscription model where MamaBird will be available to service an area for an amount of time. In the long term with MamaBird Instant Impact people anywhere in the world with app will be able to see where deliveries and flights are needed and be able to sponsor flights at the touch of a button.

We also envisage a scenario in the future where local hospitals or people in remote areas will be able to place orders for certain medical packages, pay with mobile money and have them delivered by drone.

We are looking for partners and investors resonate with with our core values and want to help connect previously unreachable areas through new technologies. Solve is a great opportunity for startup training, being introduced to great mentors, having the opportunity to pitch in front of impact investors interested in our specific field of application and partners that would also be great at the stage where we at, obtaining press coverage, as well as interacting with other exceptional solutions in the program. 

Some of the barriers for us at this early stage would be access to funding, we are particularly interested in impact investors and so we feel being a part of solve would help us expand our networks in this regard.

Another barrier is building partnerships with organisations interested in this kind of work and being a part of Solve and its network would get us the exposure and traction we need at this early stage.