ICFAI conducts leadership conversations on “Emerging Tech for Social Good: The Case of Marut Drones”
“We at Marut Drones wish to use the advanced Drone technology for the social welfare” stated Mr. Prem Kumar Vislawath, Founder & Chief Innovator, Marut Drones, at the 39th WiseViews Leadership Conversations conducted on January, 14th 2022 by ICFAI on every Friday at 7.30 pm. He delivered a talk on the topic “Emerging Tech for Social Good – The Case of Marut Drones”.
Mr. Prem Kumar initially made a video presentation to explain the activities taken up by the Marut Drones. “The Idea of usage of drones for solve the social problems is unique which was never tried before inspired us to start this activity” said Mr. Prem. “As a resident beside a lake in his student days, we decided to start working on the mosquito menace”, he shared. “The implementation of the idea was challenging as we had to follow-up with many government officials to convince them with the drone technology. After getting a nod from the Govt. authorities, the next issue was to make the municipality workers aware of the hazards of getting into a mosquito filled lakes to spray the mosquito eradication chemicals”, he added.
“There are customized solutions for each problem that drones can solve. For example; Hepicopter is used to carry medicines to remote places; Marut Zap to spray mosquito eradication medicine over the lakes; Agricopter to spray medicines over the crops; Seed copter is helpful in plant saplings to restore the forests” stated Mr. Prem. “After the introduction of the drone technology they could reduce the dengue cases from 24,000 to 600 and malaria cases from 18,000 to 400. It was possible because the drones have larger penetration and can destroy huge accumulation of mosquito larvae that otherwise not possible by manual spraying and at the same time it has also saved a lot of time” said Mr. Prem.
“The drones can also provide solutions for defence and police forces in identifying the threats of enemy and anti-social elements” stated Mr. Prem. “After Covid, the govt. authorities have realized the importance of the usage of drones and simplified the regulations of flying the drones for social causes”, said Mr. Prem. “The drones can also help in contactless delivery of medicines and vaccines which is the latest norm after Covid”, he added.
Mr. Prem predicted that in future their aim is to develop drones that can carry a pay load of more than 100 kgs which can help our armed forces in protecting our country from the enemies. He also said that Marut Drones is planning to start Drones Schools to create professionals as the Drone technology is spreading its wings rapidly in the areas of Social applications, Military applications and Industrial applications such as mines, oil & Gas etc. Mr Prem opined that the impact of Drone technology is bigger than internet in future.
Answering to a query in the Q & A session, Mr. Prem said “the Research Innovation Circle has helped them to get a grant to develop drones and till date they are continuing their funding after seeing the performance of Marut Drones”.
The conversation was moderated by Prof. R Prasad, Director – Academic Wing, ICFAI Group and Prof. Sudhakar Rao, Director – Branding, ICFAI Group.
About 250 participants including entrepreneurs, Research Scholars, working professionals from various parts of the country registered for this webinar which was also live streamed on facebook.
