Skye Air to help Telangana in ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project

The company is aiming to bring transformational change in rural and remote healthcare systems by enabling easy and faster access to vital medical supplies.

Hyderabad: Skye Air Mobility, one of the few companies in India which has received the permission to start BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) drone flights as a pilot project, is geared up to start the trials soon for the Government of Telangana’s ‘Medicine from the Sky’ (MFTS) project. Skye Air is part of two consortia created for this project. The company is aiming to bring transformational change in rural and remote healthcare systems by enabling easy and faster access to vital medical supplies. It is also developing customised drones for healthcare and delivery use cases.

Wing commander S Vijay (Veteran), COO, Skye Air Mobility told Telangana Today, in an exclusive interview, “We are importing a majority of the electronic components. We assemble them, do the programming, work on flight controllers and design other critical interfaces. Our Bengaluru and New Delhi teams are consolidating all activity to meet the requirements of the project.” The Telangana government is expecting the first phase of flights with select consortia to begin in the last week of June. “Remote areas in Telangana will be benefited with improved health access, enabling trauma care and supply of emergency medicine in the current pandemic scenario or even to address snake bites that rural population typically faces. Drones will allow multiple flights with medical supplies faster in a short span of time. Other States may replicate the model later,” he added.

When asked about the synergies the company has with consortia partners, Vijay said, “We are working with Blue Dart and Dunzo with deep logistics capabilities to ensure last mile connectivity, which will also ensure up to 60 per cent transport savings compared to conventional alternatives. We bring drone operation capabilities to the consortia and intend to deploy drones in one or multiple districts, as necessary.” Skye Air Mobility has been working in the drone space in the last two years to help improve adoption of drone mobility in India, the way Africa has adopted as early as 2016. The company is actively looking to raise funds in the near future and spread its operations both in India and Africa.

“We have developed one drone model (multirotor aircraft)) with 5kg payload and another with 10 kg payload capacity drone reaching ranges of 40-70 km per hour is under development. After the pilots are successful, we will expect opportunities to commercialise the drone,” he added. Last week, Flipkart said it partnered with the Telangana government to lead a consortium tasked with the development and execution of the drone deliveries of medical supplies to remote areas under the ‘Medicine from the Sky’ project, which is conceived by the World Economic Forum and Healthnet Global. The State government is keen to integrate drone-based delivery into its healthcare supply chain.

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