Dove Air Technology for surveillance and saving lives

Rudi Bowe

Dove Air is long distance Drones with advanced technology incorporated in the Drones for monitoring surveillance that can assist with the combat against illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the pouching of the Namibian wild life as well as to carrying essential services to remote areas.

Dove Air was founded by Francisco Serra-Martins a Forbes 30 under 30 Honouree in consumer technology who is an experienced engineer that is passionate about applying design principles to reinvent how people connect with technology, Angel Investment and Non-Profits.
Serra-Martins also founded a smart keyboard start-up called Sonder Design, which he sold to the world’s largest manufacturer Foxconn Inter-national Holdings who is a supplier of Apple.
Serra-Martins recently partnered with four Namibian youth to establish a Namibian tech based entity devised at tackling illegal, un-reported and unregulated fishing in our territorial waters and the pouching of the Namibian wild life and to deliver essential services like medicine to remote areas using long range unmanned aerial drones paired with artificial intelligence.
Co-Founder and Director of Dove Air Technology CC Namibian Quintin Simon said that to safeguard Namibia’s fisheries and wild life resources in the country requires fast response, simple operation, convenient maintenance, low operation cost and no personnel security risks.
Simon said the Drones will cover the Namibian fishing water and wild life areas over the shortest periods of time possible to meet marine and wild life security law enforcement requirements.
According to Simon, Dove Air Namibia are currently in advanced discussions with government entities and the Namibia Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as well as private corporate institution with a chief goal to initiate a pilot phase.
Simon said, “the pilot phase is aimed to tackle illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and illegal pouching of wild life of Namibia by providing both efficient and cost-effective data collection and monitoring solutions for fisheries and wild life managements which will assist the Ministries to meet its legislative objectives.”
“There will be no financial obligations to the government during the proposed pilot phase as the company have committed to absorb all cost as part of our investment,” Simon added.
Simon said that illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and pouching of wild life deprives Namibia billions Namibian dollar annually.
He explained that Dove Air’s unmanned aerial drones unique value proposition is the fact that they are manufactured in Johannesburg, South Africa, can monitor the sea situation from the air covering a range of +- 800 km (497 miles) with a single flight time of about 12 hours, carry a pay load of up to 19kg (41lbs) cold chain and can take off and land vertically anywhere like on vessels for example. Our Doves are also equipped with high tech imagining systems that can capture all necessary data day or night insuring the monitoring and patrolling process can be coordinated 24 hours a day giving the perpetrators no place to hide.

He explained that the artificial intelligence industry has a revenue opportunity of more than R 2,3 Billion has been approximated in South Africa, including more than 33 800 jobs and it is imperative for us Namibians to anticipate the needs of the labour market and position economic development of our communities to attract investment in industries and services of the future.
“As part of the company’s strategic vision, we are planning to establish a Technology and Innovation Hub in Namibia which will focus mainly on assembling unmanned aerial drones, creating new avenues of employment for recruitment in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) and to teach our youth new aligned TVET skills as the market share for drone technology increases,” Simon concluded.
Photos contributed