WeRobotics

WeRobotics amplifies the power of local expertise to multiply sustainable solutions for development, driven by local actors. By supporting and connecting local experts in drone, data, and AI technologies through its Flying Labs Network, WeRobotics integrates drones and citizen-generated data for the social good. Flying Labs, in turn, strengthens the capacity of its local communities — including national and local governments, NGOs, research centers, disaster-affected communities, academia, and youth — on how to generate, process, analyze, include, and integrate drones, data, and AI into their work. Ultimately, WeRobotics offers a proven and replicable co-creative model to successfully localize and shift power in the data revolution at a grassroots level. This grant renews support to WeRobotics’ Africa program, which will continue investing in locally led efforts to integrate drones and citizen-led data efforts across 20 African countries, to grow collaborations between a wide array of local and regional partners, and to expand the understanding of African policymakers on the value of drones and locally generated data — including through scalable models for effective policy regulation of drones. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)

WeRobotics and its global network of Flying Labs enable local experts in low- and middle-income countries to use drone imagery and artificial intelligence to provide high-quality data and analysis to solve humanitarian, development, environmental, and health problems locally. WeRobotics’ model is predicated on putting local organizations in the lead, and shifting the traditional top-down international development model on its head. This grant is for a special project of WeRobotics to work with a small consortium of donors, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and organizations based in the Global South to figure out a way to actually measure an INGO’s “Power Footprint.” An INGO’s “Power Footprint” is the amount of authority, control, and influence that an organization is able to exert over local organizations as a result of that organization’s history and current activities. With such metrics, INGOs, donors, and local organizations would then be able to much more concretely align and understand what “power” means — with a way to see nuance on the issue across the wide array of different types of organizations, and (most importantly) identify ways to reduce an INGO’s “power footprint.” (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)