The life-saving business in Rwanda that beat Amazon to drone delivery🚀
Written by Hugh Anderson
‘Entrepreneurship is the only force in human history that has lifted millions of people out poverty.🤝 No amount of foreign aid is going to sustainably employ 250 million African youth. We think these problems are the domain of NGOs or governments not private companies; that’s what we have to change.’ (Rinaudo, 2017)
The company 'Zipline', founded in 2014 by Keller Rinaudo (CEO) and Will Hetzler, uses drones to deliver medical supplies💊 and blood with never-before urgency, first in Rwanda🇷🇼 and now also in Ghana.🇬🇭 All of their distribution centres are staffed 100% locally, impacting regional unemployment and providing technical, human-capital-enhancing jobs to the labour market.💡
CEO Keller Rinaudo
Man Carrying a “Zip” next to a launcher
The drones, called “Zips”, fly autonomously at 100kph to medical institutions within an 85km radius, no matter how rural. The package in the drone is then released with a paper parachute, and touches the ground within only 20-30mins of an order being placed.⏱
This solves the ‘waste vs access’ trade-off problem associated with administering blood, which has high storage requirements and a low shelf-life. With their centralised storage facility and delivery system, 0 units of blood expired at any of the hospitals Zipline is partnered with, a feat never achieved by any health system in the world.🏆 (True as of Dec. 2017; unlikely to have changed significantly).
In his 2017 TED Talk, Rinaudo retells the story of a 24 year old mother in Rwanda who gave birth via C-Section, which lead to complications and she started to bleed. The doctors has some units of her blood type that had already been delivered by Zipline’s routine service, which they transfused into her, but she bled out of those units in 10 mins. Fortunately, the doctors had the sense to order several emergency deliveries containing 7 units of red blood cells, 4 units of plasma and 2 units of platelets (more blood than you have in your body). Using all of these, the doctors managed to stabilise her condition, and now her daughter is growing up with a mother.🙌👩👧
This story came as a revelation to my father, who recalled his experience as a doctor in Kisinga, Uganda, from 1979-1982.🇺🇬 When faced with similar situations, as there was no blood storage facility, the doctors could only hope for a nearby relative of the patient with the same blood type, or give their own blood if they were a match, then transfusing it more or less directly into the patient. For other medical supplies, he had to drive 9 hours there and back to the capital, Kampala, once per month.🚐 Comparing that to a 20-30 minute wait for customisable orders is simply staggering, and I think it is important in a world where so many things seem backwards, to recognise and be inspired by companies like Zipline, that are carrying us forward as a species.🏆👏
Taking this further, Rinaudo states that ‘Africa can be the disrupter. These small agile developing economies can out-innovate large rich ones, and they can totally leap-frog🐸 over the absence of legacy infrastructure to go straight to newer and better systems.’
We have witnessed this “leap-frogging” before, for example with many African populations jumping straight to using mobile phones, instead of installing hugely expensive landline infrastructure. Furthermore, Kenya’s use of online banking and mobile payments since 2007 also demonstrates this idea, as now approximately 50% of Kenya’s GDP passes frictionlessly through M-PESA accounts on phones.📲
According to the IMF, the average Economic growth in Western Europe and North America was 1.4% and 2% respectively. For the highly talked about BRIC countries, Brazil🇧🇷 had 2% GDP growth, Russia🇷🇺 had 1.9%, India🇮🇳 had 7% and China🇨🇳 had 5.8%. There were 22 countries in Africa that had a growth rate of between 6%-10%, with Rwanda itself achieving 8.1% growth. The statistics really speak for themselves and the trends would indicate that this will not be slowing down anytime soon (although short-run shocks like the COVID-19 out-break will surely to throw a spanner🔧 in the works).
The Team in Rwanda
In conclusion, it would be truly erroneous for entrepreneurs to view Africa as a continent that needs their generosity.🙅♂️ Western companies are really beginning to see these nations for what they truly are - exciting economies with highly valuable business partners and exciting consumer pools to tap into. Rinaudo sums it up well with this anecdote: ‘(People) say “Oh (what you're doing is) so generous of you! So philanthropic!” NO! Philanthropy has nothing to do with it! Because of the commercial contracts that we sign…these networks are 100% sustainable and scalable.’📈💰 Ultimately, it is these market signals, brought under the spotlight by companies like Zipline, that will drive meaningful business activity to the continent, sparking lasting change and helping it reach its full potential in the coming years.