A drone management system, developed by Geoffrey Nyaga of Astral Aviation, has won the 2017 IATA Air Cargo Innovation Award. The winner was announced at the World Cargo Symposium 2017 in Abu Dhabi, on Thursday 16 March 2017.
The drone management system is a UTM (Unified Threat Management) concept that reserves airspace between 4,000ft and 8,000ft for drones. The platform is designed to build virtual routes, based on data including things such as weather and restricted airspace, and then captures all the data to share with regulators. It was developed by Geoffrey Nyaga, who recently graduated as an aeronautical engineer. He is also apparently the first person to build a drone in Kenya.
Astral Aviation received USD 20,000 for their win. The company last year set up a subsisidary, Astral Aerial Solution, to deal with drone operations in Kenya and Rwanda.