With its “flying ambulances”, Rwanda dreams of becoming Africa’s Silicon Valley

It’s a familiar buzz in the ears of the people of Kayonza. In the sky of the province of the same name, in the north-east of Rwanda, large mechanical insects regularly walk their red and white wings, loaded with precious parcels. This January morning, one of these drones stamped Zipline rushes towards the district hospital, where Belyse Kaneza is waiting, in a garden bordered by acacia trees. Eyes fixed on the horizon, the laboratory assistant in a white coat watches the device, phone in hand. “Estimated arrival in 2 minutes”, displays his screen. The machine approaches, descends in altitude, opens its belly and releases a cardboard box the size of a shoebox, equipped with a mini-parachute, before resuming its flight. Now, the minutes are counted, because the package contains two bags of blood intended for the maternity unit. A mother with postpartum hemorrhage needs it urgently.

Such is the unusual daily life of this establishment, a partner, like 356 other hospitals and health centers in the territory, of the company Zipline. Originally from California, the company made Rwanda, a small landlocked state in East Africa, its testing ground in 2016. Six years later, it covers, thanks to its two take-off platforms (one in the West, the other in the East), the bulk of the country’s blood demand, with the exception of Kigali, the capital. It also ships plasma and a wide range of drugs: antibiotics, vaccines or insulin. “Beyond emergency response, we offer an alternative to hospitals and clinics that do not have the necessary or efficient enough infrastructure to store these products,” explains Diane Kayigi, Zipline’s chief operating officer.

Born of a crazy bet, the start-up has become the showcase for the ambition of President Paul Kagame – who has held the country with an iron fist for twenty-two years: to make Rwanda the Silicon Valley of the continent. A challenge for this country of 13 million inhabitants, devastated in 1994 by the genocide of the Tutsis (between 800,000 and 1 million deaths), and which is among the 25 poorest on the planet.

“Zipline is the perfect example of the model we promote”, explains the minister in charge of innovation Paula Ingabire, 39, behind her desk framed by two blue, yellow and green flags of Rwanda, with a view of the hills of Kigali. . The model ? Become a test country for the most revolutionary technologies, such as these “air ambulances”. “In the aftermath of the genocide, we started from scratch, we had little infrastructure, only one telecommunications company and limited natural resources. We therefore bet on innovation as one of the engines of our renaissance”, continues this graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States.

But Rwanda is a Tom Thumb compared to the Nigerian giant (more than 200 million inhabitants), Ethiopia (115 million) or even neighboring Kenya (54 million). Difficult, under these conditions, to convince investors to settle in this meager market. “This is why we are creating an attractive environment where innovators come to test their solution and then duplicate it elsewhere. In short, a launching pad for the entire African market”, resumes Paula Ingabire. The authorities, for example, offer attractive tax exemptions, such as this 0% income tax rate for an international company setting up its headquarters or regional office in Rwanda… if it invests at least 10 million there. of dollars, provides employment to Rwandans and spends at least 2 million dollars per year.

Impossible to know if Zipline falls into this category, because the financial arrangement of this young shoot is a well-kept secret. The company, funded in 2015 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has since attracted heavyweights such as the investment fund of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. One thing is certain, its 130 employees are mostly Rwandan.

And the “crash test” seems to have worked in this country, since, three years after its beginnings, the company also settled in Ghana in 2019, its largest area of ​​intervention in Africa – it delivers there in particular vaccines against Covid-19 -, then in the United States. Next on the list: Nigeria and Japan, where operations are expected to begin in the coming months. Last year, the startup raised $250 million, bringing its valuation to $2.75 billion.

At the Kayonza hub, one of the two take-off sites in Rwanda, Diane Kayigi, the head of operations, is already imagining the future. “Our catalog of medical products is expanding year after year,” she says. In the air-conditioned warehouse where the orders, placed by telephone, SMS or WhatsApp, are packaged, two pickers are busy before passing the packages on the other side of the window, towards the drone launch station. “By the end of 2022, we hope to deploy two to five new services in Rwanda,” anticipates country director Shami Eden Benimana.

Among the novelties under study, the rapid delivery of products (especially medical) for tourists or the sending of veterinary treatments for breeders.

Drones to fight malaria

In a country as hilly as Rwanda, the use of delivery drones makes it possible to circumvent the many obstacles on land, where a few kilometers can take up precious time, especially in the most rural areas, where the state of the roads sometimes leaves something to be desired.

Another company has also built its success on these small aircraft, promising its customers a saving of time and money. Founded in 2016 in Kigali, Charis UAS has chosen another niche: aerial photography for construction projects. “Here, for example, our client is going to build an irrigation system, explains one of the company’s engineers, with supporting images. He needs to know the topography of the place perfectly.” Elsewhere, these high-resolution photos are used to maintain telephone antennas. “This allows you to inspect, in 3D, the state of each of the screws of the remote structure”, shows another technician. Last year, Charis embarked on another activity, adding insecticide spraying machines to its fleet of drones to fight malaria. The pilot phase, carried out in 2020, allowed, according to the company, the reduction of almost 90% of the larvae, so that the project now covers six districts for a budget of more than 1 million dollars, in partnership with the government. Enough to allow Minister Paula Ingabire to affirm that innovations do not only come from abroad. Moreover, the activity of drone operators has increased since 2016. The civil aviation authority counts around fifty operators (companies or individuals) and 300,000 flights have been recorded since 2016.

But to achieve the Silicon Valley dear to Paul Kagame, there is still a long way to go. The president formulated his dream in 2018: that the next Mark Zuckerberg be Rwandan. Achilles’ heel no. 1 remains education. The average length of schooling peaked at 4.4 years in 2019, according to the United Nations. As for the research & development budget, it does not exceed 0.7% of GDP. “It is clear that this is insufficient to develop the key sector of innovation,” says economist Teddy Kaberuka. The goal? Reaching 1% in the medium term, and up to 3%, according to Paula Ingabire. In the meantime, the government has injected $20 million into the Kigali Innovation City, a 61-hectare complex under construction that will house universities, offices and start-up incubators. To perhaps one day walk in the footsteps of Israel or Singapore, the two models of Rwanda.

This report was produced in partnership with the European Center for Journalism, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.