25 rural women graduate from FlySakhi drone programme at IIT Hyderabad

Twenty-five rural women have completed the first cohort of the FlySakhi – Drone Queens of Bharat programme and received certificates at TiHAN, IIT Hyderabad. The initiative aims to equip rural women with skills in agricultural drone technology and entrepreneurship.

Hyderabad: Twenty-five rural women completed the first cohort of FlySakhi – Drone Queens of Bharat and received their certificates at TiHAN, IIT Hyderabad.

Themed ‘Empowering Women Entrepreneurs through Agricultural Drone Technology’, the programme trains rural women not merely as drone operators but as owners of rural drone-service enterprises. FlySakhi is led by World Cooperation Economic Forum (WCOOPEF) and CNRI, with TiHAN–IIT Hyderabad as technology partner and Syngenta India Pvt. Ltd. as CSR partner.

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Training covered drone operation, flight safety, multipurpose agricultural and rural applications, and the drone-as-a-Service business model. Now, each graduate can offer drone services to farmers, cooperatives and farmer producer organisations on a fee-for-service basis.

Graduates can also be linked to cooperatives, self-help groups and FPOs, so that drone assets and earnings stay within community-owned structures, a press release said.

Syngenta India Business Sustainability & Corporate Affairs Head Sangeeta Dawar said the future of agriculture depends not only on scientific innovation and access to modern solutions, but also on building knowledge, skills and awareness among the people who are at the heart of this sector.