I had every plan to entertain you very
similar to Tom Thumb just a while ago
but I’m sorry I can’t follow that act I
have a scratchy throat okay very
inspiring and imitating posters that I
saw just as I came in to TEDx I am a
former TEDx speaker but I could tell you
a lot about flames to ashes and I can
also tell you that people with great
passion happen to make almost everything
impossible however let’s get down to the
topic that I’d like to chat with you
about many years ago I gave a TED talk
about designing and building drones in
Pakistan and it covered a lot of the
hardships and challenges that one faces
working in an environment like our
country most of the audience at that
time was not really aware of what drones
were capable of I think attention
focused mainly on the predator which was
a us-made drone working out of
Afghanistan and the kind of destruction
in havoc that it was bringing down not
just on armed militants but also on
innocent civilians it was a lethal
machine that did not distinguish between
friend or foe while his handlers sat and
sipped coffee thousands of miles away
and just pressed buttons to launch its
missiles as I talked to you today the
role of the drone has been reinvented
many times over and while these lethal
machines still exist
I think the role has changed in
sleep and have been overshadowed by a
multitude of other applications Jones
these days are used in farming in
livestock management in fisheries and
coastal monitoring search and rescue
crop management civil engineering area
mapping delivering medicines you also
know that drones are used for taking
selfies and shooting wedding videos and
covering social events
today’s drones actually can save lives
now this is where aerospace and its
related technologies which were
basically developed for military use
have guests swarm themselves over into
devices that all of you use every day
from your mobile phones into unmanned or
driverless cars into platforms that can
map mineral deposits several meters
under the ground
so where does all of this take us some
time back along with some other
like-minded individuals around the world
I decided to try and reinvent and put
our drones to innovative applications to
make them useful for developing
countries like Pakistan my talk today
will briefly touch upon that version a
lot of you might be familiar with the
simple fact that when you go into a
classroom a lot of the projects that you
do a lot of the concepts that you are
taught are not really applied in to
real-world situations sometimes because
of a lack of resources sometimes because
of a lack of time and sometimes because
academic pressures weigh you down the
plan as far as I was concerned
was very simple in order to reinvent the
drone we needed to
look at the problems that we’re facing
developing countries like Pakistan so
health medicine education communications
Water Resources Management minerals
search-and-rescue security were all
major major applications and these were
tasks that could not be done alone
luckily I was rescued by my students and
a lot of those students helped me
initiate a process we’ll step by baby
step we actually started taking students
outside the classroom and initiating
them into critical building and making
skills the plan again was very simple
whole technology workshops do
cutting-edge technology projects which
could initiate students into becoming
makers and builders and actually start
coming up with innovative solutions a
lot of the times we were faced with huge
hurdles in terms of resources fundings
and other areas however we circumvented
a lot of these things and now just to
discuss some of the projects that we
have done over the past few years and
let me tell you once again there has
been a global open sourcing on a lot of
these projects some of the projects that
we have done which directly apply to the
environment in our country and other
developing countries are building a
solar-powered drone that could act as a
communications repeat a platform for
distance education imagine something
which can be up in the air over a
village school in 3rd Parker for several
hours and while the teacher is
delivering a lecture to the classroom
the lecture is being beamed up to the
drone and the drone is beaming it to 50
other various schools within a hundred
kilometer radius another project was
developing an unmanned
vehicle which could map irrigation
pathways and also collect water samples
in large water bodies to basically judge
water quality and drinkability in large
reservoirs drones are required to
deliver medicines drones are required to
collect biological samples from remote
inaccessible areas we develop drones
like that along with students like
yourself drones are also required to map
crops forests study crop yield plant
height and a lot of other things which
are needed in Pakistan drones use a lot
of composite materials fiberglass kevlar
carbon fiber the whole world and
especially developing countries suffer
from a massive shortage of quality low
cost housing why not convert some of the
composite structures technology into
creating low-cost housing which could be
assembled within a few hours and have a
single tool assembly why not send up an
environmental and communications package
into Neil’s face recover it using drone
technologies and actually be able to
figure out the starting point of low
Earth no cost
satellites will you do away with the
rocket part which is the most expensive
in terms of launching a satellite so
these and a lot of other things were the
projects that we have been working on
along with a bunch of inspired
youngsters like yourself we always
welcome people like yourselves to come
in and work with us so we have now a
talented resource pool of people who are
not just engineers there are architects
they’re artists they’re photographers
and we are always looking for people who
could be poets philosophers thinkers
these are the people who bring a unique
and innovative vision into technology as
we know of it today I know that
technical innovation in a country like
Pakistan or a restricted environment
anywhere in the world is very difficult
to achieve I also know that you struggle
each day in building careers providing
some stability to your futures having a
certainty in what you are doing but I
also know that time and again the only
time that I have managed to achieve
anything is when I have gone out of my
comfort zone and reached out to enrich
the lives of others
that is when magical innovation takes
place you might also want to ask that
these cutting-edge projects seem to be
huge does they seem to involve a large
amount of budgets and resources manpower
and trained personnel there’s a very
famous saying about engineers that their
eyes are normally bigger than their
budgets and are normally always believed
that they are never in the wrong I
subscribed to both billions if you are
truly passionate try not to make the
impossible happen try to make things
happen I think this is the crux of the
work that we have done in the past and I
would strongly welcome all of you to
join the effort that we are making in
creating a resource group where we are
trying to put drones into more peaceful
and humane applications if any of you is
interested in getting in touch please do
so let us get to a level where what we
achieve is truly what we are capable of
and become the inspiration thank you for
listening [Applause]
similar to Tom Thumb just a while ago
but I’m sorry I can’t follow that act I
have a scratchy throat okay very
inspiring and imitating posters that I
saw just as I came in to TEDx I am a
former TEDx speaker but I could tell you
a lot about flames to ashes and I can
also tell you that people with great
passion happen to make almost everything
impossible however let’s get down to the
topic that I’d like to chat with you
about many years ago I gave a TED talk
about designing and building drones in
Pakistan and it covered a lot of the
hardships and challenges that one faces
working in an environment like our
country most of the audience at that
time was not really aware of what drones
were capable of I think attention
focused mainly on the predator which was
a us-made drone working out of
Afghanistan and the kind of destruction
in havoc that it was bringing down not
just on armed militants but also on
innocent civilians it was a lethal
machine that did not distinguish between
friend or foe while his handlers sat and
sipped coffee thousands of miles away
and just pressed buttons to launch its
missiles as I talked to you today the
role of the drone has been reinvented
many times over and while these lethal
machines still exist
I think the role has changed in
sleep and have been overshadowed by a
multitude of other applications Jones
these days are used in farming in
livestock management in fisheries and
coastal monitoring search and rescue
crop management civil engineering area
mapping delivering medicines you also
know that drones are used for taking
selfies and shooting wedding videos and
covering social events
today’s drones actually can save lives
now this is where aerospace and its
related technologies which were
basically developed for military use
have guests swarm themselves over into
devices that all of you use every day
from your mobile phones into unmanned or
driverless cars into platforms that can
map mineral deposits several meters
under the ground
so where does all of this take us some
time back along with some other
like-minded individuals around the world
I decided to try and reinvent and put
our drones to innovative applications to
make them useful for developing
countries like Pakistan my talk today
will briefly touch upon that version a
lot of you might be familiar with the
simple fact that when you go into a
classroom a lot of the projects that you
do a lot of the concepts that you are
taught are not really applied in to
real-world situations sometimes because
of a lack of resources sometimes because
of a lack of time and sometimes because
academic pressures weigh you down the
plan as far as I was concerned
was very simple in order to reinvent the
drone we needed to
look at the problems that we’re facing
developing countries like Pakistan so
health medicine education communications
Water Resources Management minerals
search-and-rescue security were all
major major applications and these were
tasks that could not be done alone
luckily I was rescued by my students and
a lot of those students helped me
initiate a process we’ll step by baby
step we actually started taking students
outside the classroom and initiating
them into critical building and making
skills the plan again was very simple
whole technology workshops do
cutting-edge technology projects which
could initiate students into becoming
makers and builders and actually start
coming up with innovative solutions a
lot of the times we were faced with huge
hurdles in terms of resources fundings
and other areas however we circumvented
a lot of these things and now just to
discuss some of the projects that we
have done over the past few years and
let me tell you once again there has
been a global open sourcing on a lot of
these projects some of the projects that
we have done which directly apply to the
environment in our country and other
developing countries are building a
solar-powered drone that could act as a
communications repeat a platform for
distance education imagine something
which can be up in the air over a
village school in 3rd Parker for several
hours and while the teacher is
delivering a lecture to the classroom
the lecture is being beamed up to the
drone and the drone is beaming it to 50
other various schools within a hundred
kilometer radius another project was
developing an unmanned
vehicle which could map irrigation
pathways and also collect water samples
in large water bodies to basically judge
water quality and drinkability in large
reservoirs drones are required to
deliver medicines drones are required to
collect biological samples from remote
inaccessible areas we develop drones
like that along with students like
yourself drones are also required to map
crops forests study crop yield plant
height and a lot of other things which
are needed in Pakistan drones use a lot
of composite materials fiberglass kevlar
carbon fiber the whole world and
especially developing countries suffer
from a massive shortage of quality low
cost housing why not convert some of the
composite structures technology into
creating low-cost housing which could be
assembled within a few hours and have a
single tool assembly why not send up an
environmental and communications package
into Neil’s face recover it using drone
technologies and actually be able to
figure out the starting point of low
Earth no cost
satellites will you do away with the
rocket part which is the most expensive
in terms of launching a satellite so
these and a lot of other things were the
projects that we have been working on
along with a bunch of inspired
youngsters like yourself we always
welcome people like yourselves to come
in and work with us so we have now a
talented resource pool of people who are
not just engineers there are architects
they’re artists they’re photographers
and we are always looking for people who
could be poets philosophers thinkers
these are the people who bring a unique
and innovative vision into technology as
we know of it today I know that
technical innovation in a country like
Pakistan or a restricted environment
anywhere in the world is very difficult
to achieve I also know that you struggle
each day in building careers providing
some stability to your futures having a
certainty in what you are doing but I
also know that time and again the only
time that I have managed to achieve
anything is when I have gone out of my
comfort zone and reached out to enrich
the lives of others
that is when magical innovation takes
place you might also want to ask that
these cutting-edge projects seem to be
huge does they seem to involve a large
amount of budgets and resources manpower
and trained personnel there’s a very
famous saying about engineers that their
eyes are normally bigger than their
budgets and are normally always believed
that they are never in the wrong I
subscribed to both billions if you are
truly passionate try not to make the
impossible happen try to make things
happen I think this is the crux of the
work that we have done in the past and I
would strongly welcome all of you to
join the effort that we are making in
creating a resource group where we are
trying to put drones into more peaceful
and humane applications if any of you is
interested in getting in touch please do
so let us get to a level where what we
achieve is truly what we are capable of
and become the inspiration thank you for
listening [Applause]
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