New Flying Labs Takes Off in Chile, Strengthening Our Latin American Network

As one of the most disaster-hit countries in the world, Chile represents a prosperous opportunity to build innovative methods of resilience with the help of drones. It was just a matter of time that Chile Flying Labs were officially born, and today we have the pleasure of welcoming it to our growing Latin American Flying Labs network.

We have been working for a very long time with ESRI Chile, DroneSAR Chile and the Earth Science specialists from the Bernardo O'Higgins University with the purpose of advancing the use of drones in response to emergencies and for humanitarian aid.

Headed by Mauricio Tapia, Electronic Engineer at INACAP and Director at DroneSAR Chile, with the support of geographer Fabiola Barrenechea and biologist María Inés Diaz, Chile Flying Labs will be based in Santiago.

Chile Flying Labs’ main focus will naturally be on search and rescue, public safety, risk reduction as well as other interesting scientific researches around marine algae and bees.

Currently, the team is leading three important efforts:

1. Mapping and surveying of Lampa’s Communal Risk;
2. Training the Chilean Firefighters on using drones safely;
3. Training the Chilean Army’s Telecommunications Command in response to emergencies with drones.

Among their accolades it is worth mentioning that DroneSAR Chile was one of the winners of the AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards 2018 in the Humanitarian Projects category.

WeRobotics and Chile Flying Labs will continue to work together to align with international humanitarian practices through robotics and artificial intelligence for social good, and to promote strong collaboration across other labs in Latin America.

Please join us in welcoming Chile Flying Labs to our team of change-makers!