CALI, COLOMBIA — The initiative that was born in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic based on a drone made of PVC pipes to bring medicines to the residents of a sector of Barranquilla in Colombia, today has become a promising urgent delivery service and has an offer to enter the South Korean market thanks to the vision of a young Venezuelan migrant. José Alejandro Otero arrived in Colombia to flee the violence and crisis in his country. In full isolation, he saw an opportunity in the difficulty that existed to attend to those who were his neighbors for fear of catching the virus and that is when, without money and with no more than the support of some friends, he built a drone to bring medicine to these patients. He called this first creation Scrander, a refrigerated prototype, with a range of between 500 and 700 meters and a medicine load capacity of up to 2 kilos. Once the worst part of the emergency was over, his aspirations did not end with the arrival of vaccines. Instead, they went as high as the device itself when he received the money to finance his refinement after winning two innovation contests. “We won a contest, Sena Innova 2020, which was carried out in 2021 through Colombia Productiva. We received 200 million pesos [unos 40.000 dólares] for the development of the Escarabajo light-load drone, but we advanced with the drone to a second contest,” Otero said in statements to the . “They awarded us 550 million [unos 110.000 dólares] in financing to develop the vital urgent drug delivery service to carry up to 5 kilos of refrigerated medicines and transform roofs into productive factors 4.0 and stop having roof rubbish as they do today”, he added. This allowed him to advance in the light load drone, which will not only provide a vital service of transporting medicines of little more than 300 dollars in value, with the required temperature and for clinical use, from the roofs of the drugstores to the clinics of Barranquilla. Also, to deal with other types of situations and connect areas for emergency supplies, logistics, security, investigation or monitoring, to name a few. “It can take supplies from a port to a ship, from ship to ship at sea, it is used to create airlifts in catastrophe situations for rescue forces, for high-security orders, collect and track samples of water resources,” assures its creator. The project also involves education, since it has a school that offers online courses or diplomas with universities to train certified pilots who want to get involved in learning these trades considered to be of the future. “If you have a child you can learn, adults too, a person from the Wayúuu indigenous ethnic group or with a hearing disability, thanks to the fact that we have the sign language teaching system. This year we have graduated 65 and each one has a success story to tell to open up free opportunities”, clarifies the businessman. However, the good news around this invention, designed to save lives or reduce the intensity of an emergency, has not ended since the Maxdrone took flight. Opportunity from Asia One day, in search of new horizons, an agreement with the business office of the South Korean Embassy in Colombia came true to learn about a drone start-up in the Asian country. The emerging company, which won a global urban air mobility challenge, proposed to the Otero firm to co-develop software technology for this equipment. The 100% Colombian drones will soon operate within the urban air system of Incheon, a neighboring city of Seoul, the nerve center of Korean transportation. “It is a giant project, something important because it means entering the Asian market with them and for them, it is an entrance to Colombia and Latin America with their offers in software options integrated with our beetle drones”, explains the 24-year-old international business professional. . Next year they will go to South Korea to continue the drone testing process. Although they still do not see the need to open an office in that country and can continue to operate from Colombia, the mission of the next flights is very clear for this young entrepreneur who flew high and far with the idea of helping society in conflicts of mobility: transforming the face of Latin America before the world as a consumer of technology. Connect with the ! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and instagram.
RELATED
