Over a decade ago in Afghanistan, a young man named Salehi fled the Taliban, eventually making his way through Turkey where he made the treacherous journey in a rickety dinghy across the Mediterranean to Greece… to freedom. He knew first hand the dangers of making this sea crossing which has since claimed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives. Today, he wants to do something about the unnecessary deaths, and thus has become… a drone expert.
Salehi has recently developed a program called “Drones for Refugees” which enables intelligence on the exact locations of boats in distress. He says that the program offers “real-time data gathering and sharing platform. You use this drone system to identify where refugees are and what their needs are. The main purpose is to identify the GPS location of refugee boats, and send help right away.”
The operation, per PRI, works like this: “Drones fly over typical paths for refugee boats, and when their systems identify one in distress, they send GPS location, camera footage and infrared sensor data to websites and cellphones used by coastguards, search and rescue teams and merchant ships.”
