Part of the problem legalising commercial drone deliveries in first world countries, is the amount of restrictions and laws that apply. Laws that take a long time to change. Things are a tad more flexible in Rwanda.

Huffington Post gave us this:

The world’s first commercial drone delivery service is in Rwanda, and it’s delivering blood.

The service is operated by Zipline, a US robotics and drone company. The drones drop blood parcels on parachutes outside remote health centers. Rwanda’s government pays Zipline for the deliveries, each of which costs about the same as the motorbike deliveries used previously,according to Keller Rinaudo, Zipline’s CEO. (The company declined to say how much that was, saying it would defer to the government to release the figure.)

That’s pretty cool. They reckon Zipline will make between 50 and 150 deliveries per day to 21 clinics in the western half of the country.

But how do they order the blood? Surely they’re not rolling with apps and high-speed broadband? No, sir – Africa’s biggest technological communication portal – the humble text message – plays a big part here.

Health workers can request a blood drop via text message, and it arrives around 30 minutes later. That makes a big difference in a country where short road trips can take hours. Blood loss after birth is one of the reasons maternal mortality is much higher in poor countries than rich ones; it’s the leading cause of death in Rwanda for pregnant women. And blood has to be stored carefully and matched to the recipient.

Brilliant. Let’s check out the video.

Maybe we’ll think twice when we argue how ‘desperately’ we need fast food drone deliveries. It’s clear there are other applications that are a tad more desperate and probably more important than your tummy.

But that doesn’t mean the whole of Africa is embracing drones. They’re actually banned in Kenya – did you know that? Yup, you can read about that here.

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