Nosipho Gumede and Mandisa Magubane

The 3^rd widely anticipated DroneCon event took place at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC).  Day one of the programme saw redefined innovations come to life.

This year’s theme was ‘Redefining the future of work with Drones 4.0’, with the main focus being on future skills. Amongst the delegates and guests were MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube who spoke about preparing the youth for the future of work.

“We see a lot of opportunities opening for young people in terms of opening a variety of an industrial hatch that will specialise in the manufacturing of the drones, the repairs, and also the training for the drones.”

The MEC further added that the youth can be a big part of this initiative as they learn how to operate and create drones. She also mentioned that there would be vast job opportunities in different sectors.

Yolisa Kani, head of public policy at Uber Technologies South Africa, introduced the ground-breaking idea of ‘Uber Air’, a bold initiative for mobility platforms.

“Uber air is a product that will be making available ‘helicopters’ for lack of a better word, for you to commute short distances, relatively 50km-100km. It would be a node to node which is in suburban areas,” said Kani.

Kani outlined that this project is still a work in progress and that it is still in the research stages.

“We are working with the government, the aviation industry and OEMS to look at what kind of a product can we come up with,” she added.

Day 2 of DroneCon will take place at the ICC on the 16th of October