As the winner, the company will receive prize money of GBP 65,000. The flight competition was held as part of the African Drone Forum 2020, which took place for the first time in Rwanda in February 2020. The event aimed to demonstrate the potential of autonomous drone deliveries to supply isolated communities and rural areas across Africa. 92 drone companies from 35 countries applied for the challenge. Ten companies were ultimately invited to demonstrate their capabilities in real-life scenarios at Lake Kivu in Western Rwanda.

Wingcopter impressed the jury of experts during the three-week flight exercises, which included the fully autonomous delivery of an emergency package from the mainland to the island of Bugarura and the safe return to the starting point. The outward and return flight was 40 kilometers and was completed "beyond visual line of sight" (BVLOS) and without changing batteries. The wingcopter drones took twelve minutes to fly to the island, compared to the minimum 50 minutes required for a boat to cover the same distance. No landing or human interaction was required at the delivery site, as the package was lowered using an innovative winch mechanism. Wingcopter had already successfully used this type of delivery in Vanuatu, where 19 remote villages were supplied with vaccines on demand on behalf of the local Ministry of Health and in collaboration with UNICEF.

"We are very proud to have won the Lake Kivu Challenge, as this competition and the African Drone Forum embody the innovative spirit of humanitarian aid and the African drone community, as well as the great potential for sustainable drone operations. We strongly believe that Wingcopter drones can contribute to overcoming existing infrastructural problems and thus achieve significant social and economic benefits in Africa and elsewhere," comments Tom Plümmer, CEO and co-founder of Wingcopter.

"Wingcopter aims to build long-term relationships with local governments and business partners as well as donor organizations across Africa," adds Selina Herzog, Project Manager at Wingcopter. "Through these partnerships, we will promote knowledge sharing and training of local workers, empowering our partners to set up their own scalable projects. We want our technology to sustainably help the communities in which we operate and create new prospects."

Wingcopter also recently announced a commercial partnership with UPS Flight Forward to jointly develop the next generation of package drones. The combination of the logistics giant's experience and global network with Wingcopter's contactless drone delivery technology will put the two companies in a better position to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is currently preparing several corona-related projects.