Rwanda

“The whole idea was we're going to go out to Rwanda. We're going to prove out that we can do this. And then we can bring back all of the safety records to the U S and eventually be allowed to fly in the U S which is what has happened now.”

“And by 10 a.m., there are 50 autonomous aircraft out making deliveries simultaneously to all of the 500 hospitals and health facilities that we serve in the country.”

“50% of blood transfusions are going to moms with postpartum hemorrhaging. 30% are going toward kids with severe anemia due to malaria.”

“Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa are markets that we're targeting just now, but have, we want to break into consumer packaged goods. That's actually like our longer term play.”

“Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa are markets that we're targeting just now, but have, we want to break into consumer packaged goods. That's actually like our longer term play.”

“And she was explaining that blood transfusions, 50% of them are going toward moms with postpartum hemorrhaging. 30% are going toward kids.”

“A lot of people may find it surprising, but the reality is Rwanda, you know, has really modeled itself on Singapore. It is a small, highly efficient, technocratic, fast-moving, innovative country in East Africa and, you know, run by a lot of very visionary lea…”

“There, we had signed this contract to deliver just blood, right, a very narrow part of the overall healthcare system to just 21 hospitals, and we thought, oh, that's great, we'll just knock that out, and then we can expand to other things. But for the first ni…”

“We deliver 75% of the national blood supply of Rwanda outside of Kigali fully autonomously.”

“For the first nine months, we only served one hospital, not 21. You know, we were wise enough to say, well, we're going to onboard the first hospital and make sure it's working reliably for that hospital before we try to do more. We thought that was going to t…”

“Rwanda Made, I think what's the largest investment into any private company the country has made into Zipline. So is now is now a shareholder in the company.”

“I do think Zipline's survival depended on finding a partner that would move equally fast and be equally agile.”

“Average U.S. Person uses, you probably know this, but 12 megawatt hours per year, roughly. If we're looking at some of the markets in Africa, we focus a lot on Kenya. Kenya is about a 150 kilowatt hours per year. A little bit above that. You know, you're looki…”

“We have a portfolio company called zip line, and they have been delivering blood throughout Rwanda for a few years now. All together, they deliver a 20% of all blood that's involved in transfusions in Rwanda, 25%, and they do it by a fixed wing drone.”

“Rwanda actually has the only autonomous system operating at national scale anywhere in the world.”

“At this point, Zipline is delivering around 20% of the national blood supply of Rwanda outside of Kigali.”

“We deliver blood to about half of the transfusing facilities in Rwanda.”

“Rwanda delivers about 55,000 units of blood a year. 50% of that is going toward moms right after giving birth, and 30% is going to our kids under the age of five who have anemia due to malaria.”

“UPS is basically supporting the work that we're doing in Rwanda. So they've both been helping fund the work and then also been advising us in terms of actually creating a logistics network at national scale.”

“This distribution center is serving about half of all the hospitals in Rwanda, and we are already planning a second distribution center, which will put every single one of the eleven million citizens within a 15 minute delivery of any essential medical product…”

“For Keller, it's a real revenue producing operation. They're making, you know, some money on this.”

“But interestingly, the regulation there is just as strict as the regulation here in the US.”

“What we're doing in Rwanda is illegal in the US, unfortunately.”

“There are three or four refugee camps within range of the first distribution center we've set up.”

“It turns out if you can get sperm to these farmers, you can increase the economic productivity of that family by like 30 to 50%, which is a huge deal.”

“We are currently covering all the costs of the system with what we're doing in Rwanda, and we are going to be using money from that first distribution center to fund the second.”

“I kind of feel like Rwanda is probably what it felt like to be living in the U.S. 200 years ago, when there was relatively little regulation and just tons of people building new things, building new infrastructure”