Aban develops drone for disaster relief

Aban Habib, a class 12th student has designed a drone for disaster relief, the idea to develop this innovation came after he witnessed the devastating deluge of 2014, finding people helplessly waiting for relief back then, he took the job into his own hands and came up with a drone that can be of great help during natural disasters.

With the support of his parents, Aban has founded Sky Robo Drones Pvt Ltd.

   

The idea to design drones for disaster relief came up when Kashmir was in the middle of the worst-ever urban floods in 2014.

He was distraught to see Srinagar city lashed by a massive flood in 2014. Having no access to any disaster aid, he saw his own people in immense pain and helplessness. Habib has been a drone enthusiast since he was in 8th standard.

The tragedy inspired him to build a drone to help those stranded seek basic medical aid and food. A working prototype of his drone was shown at the defence exhibition at Ahmedabad Design Week (ADW) 3.0 organised by a private university near Ahmedabad.

“Our drone is autonomous. In disasters people or SDRF personnel can press the panic button on our website or through App and drones will capture the location of the affected or NDRF personnel and reach his location without any human intervention and deliver medicines, ready to eat items, satellite phones,hand-crank radios etc,” he said.

When asked about his educational background, Aban said that he is a class 12th student of Green Valley Educational Institute. “We have a tinkering lab in school, which helped me a lot in understanding the process and learning the art of drone making.

My parents allowed me freedom, I am a student with different thinking about studies, like other parents my family didn’t force the idea to become a doctor or engineer, they allowed me to pursue my own liking, which is to develop drones and establish my startup.’

“Right from my childhood I have seen many natural disasters in Kashmir, one such natural disaster was the 2014 floods when Kashmir was flooded. People were in need of relief material and we saw how government machinery badly failed because of lack of infrastructure you may remember when then Chief Minister of J&K, Omar Abdullah from the helicopter was throwing relief material, those were very disturbing visuals for me, everybody knows that this effort of throwing relief material from helicopters is not enough.”

“That’s the time when I thought of drones, and how helpful they can be in such situations. If we make small drones that will be autonomous and equipped with Artificial intelligence to distribute relief material in disaster areas, it could provide relief without much cost. That is the concept of my startup and I want to provide relief during natural disasters when almost everything gets affected.”

About help from the government, he said “JKEDI and JKTPO helped us a lot in terms of morale-boosting, but to date, I have not received any financial help. We have been part of the Dubai business delegation we pitched in front of the Dubai delegation for investment. we also went to Gujarat to attend DRDO sponsored event where we showcased our drone to the Chief of Army Staff, Major Narvane, Kiren Bedi tweeted about us in short everyone appreciated our effort but no one supported us with funds.

” I am spending my own money so far, no investor has invested though many investors have good reviews for us, I believe it is a work in progress. We are funding ourselves this project,” he said adding that “I believe it is also good that till I develop my inventory there is no investment, once the inventory is read people will see practically about the project.”

Any advice for young entrepreneurs. “Yes, I have very important advice for entrepreneurs, they should be ready to face rejections, you need to burn your own money, you should stay away from loans and subsidies. Loans are the root cause of failures, especially in the case of start-ups I am a strong believer that loans make you poor. You will lose your confidence if you are caught in a debt trap now young entrepreneurs may think then how can they start their business I have a simple answer outsource most of your work keep your model light and bright.”

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