The United Arab Emirates “Drones for Good” Award | Hacker News Reader

The United Arab Emirates “Drones for Good” Award

dronesforgood.ae

49 pointsdronehire44 comments

There's no mention anywhere on the page, as far as I can tell, of what happens to your IP.

The second stage of the contest requires showing extremely detailed plans to a "panel of judges from around the world."

Even though the goal of the project is indeed noble, I don't see anyone but students entering without an explanation of how the IP works. A working setup for a drone with globally applicable humanitarian mission is worth a lot more than a million dollars.

Reminds me of one of those "business plan contests", where in the end, whether you win or lose, they run off with your idea.

Does that happen frequently?

Hi, my name is Dr. Noah Raford and I am part of the competition's organising committee (proof: http://ae.linkedin.com/pub/dr-noah-raford/1/a68/4a0 More proof: http://noahraford.com/?page_id=370).

This is a really important point. Thanks so much for bringing it up.

All contestants in the competition will retain their IP for their submission. The government retains no right to the ideas submitted, nor does any other third party. If someone submits an idea using public or Creative Commons licensed IP, that IP will stay with its original owner. We'll be clarifying that on the website shortly.

We really appreciate your interest. We are working to make this award as useful as possible for stimulating conversation and innovation in this area. Thanks again.

What is the motivation for this by the UAE then?

Short answer from the website: "The first of its kind and scale, the Award is dedicated to transforming these exciting technologies into practical solutions for improving people’s lives today."

Slightly longer answer: Most of these technologies have been used for military and security applications to date. Those are important, but things are developing so rapidly and become so much less expensive (Moore's Law) that incredible new uses are becoming possible every day. The Award is about stimulating creative thinking about how to apply their potential for positive social application.

TL;DR: There is a important conversation to be had around adapting these applications to the public good. This requires imagination, leadership, and public support. That is what this award is about. Hope that answers your question.

Thanks! I know a few people running small drone businesses here in the US. It seems that with this policy there's no obvious downside to entering. I'll point them your way!

Thanks, please do!

As sea levels rise due to the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet[0], we could fly drones to survey the flooding of cities and coastal areas. That would be a fantastic use of oil wealth.

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-...

The satellites we have been using for the last few decades can accurately measure sea surface temperature and create nice visible wavelength pictures.

The old ones did 1Km resolution looking straight down from their polar orbits, ample resolution when you have something the size of Greenland, and I am sure the resolution has improved considerably since then. You also get several passes a day over a given location, day or night.

I dare say that this application is pretty well covered and the batteries of that drone in Antarctica (or Greenland) would have a hard job keeping up.

There is also the problem of registering whatever data you get to align with a map. Imagery from a normal plane is not that easy, given the flight characteristics of a drone I suspect that it is quite hard to get the imagery to line up even if you can fly from A to B in a straight line with GPS.

You realize that the breakup of the west Antarctic ice sheet is on a timescale from 200 to 1,000 years, right?

The daily variations of the sea line due to wind and tides dwarfs by far the change from global warming.

The difference is simply impossible to see. You'd have to measure decades of sea level to have a chance.

We changed the url from http://www.dronehire.org/blog/uae-government-announce-one-mi..., which was lifted from this one.

Submitters: HN prefers original sources. When there's an obvious one, please post it instead.

I imagine that it is a pain to add these addendums whenever you change the title. For what it is worth I am extremely grateful of the effort. It takes some of the confusion out of things and most importantly it gets everything out in the open.

Thanks! It's a pain, but I think we can eventually (semi-)automate it.

It would be neat to see if the frequency of changes diminishes over time. I would be willing to bet that the notifications of link change provide some form of user education and exposes potential link submitters to the rules.

I've wondered about that too.

Maybe a drone that can deliver caviar to the Sheikh's 180 meter yacht when he runs out of caviar?

Yes. That would save him a fortune on hiring yet another helicopter.

In the words of the great visionary Bill Hicks:

"See, everyone got boners over the technology, and it was pretty incredible. Watching missiles fly down air vents, pretty unbelievable. But couldn’t we feasibly use that same technology to shoot food at hungry people? Know what I mean? Fly over Ethiopia, ‘There’s a guy that needs a banana!’ SHOOP. The Stealth Banana. Smart fruit!"

"All semi-finalists of the International competition will receive $5,000 USD to develop and improve their prototype."

Realistically, that means a consumer grade drone. (So no grand ideas for re-purposing one of those drones that can fly from an island in the Indian Ocean, loiter for a few hours and then, under the guidance of some teenager in Florida, send a missile into some wedding party in the tribal areas of Pakistan.)

What is the range of a ~$5K drone? Payload? Battery life? Knowing these approximate parameters would be quite useful for putting one's thinking cap on. If anyone has a good idea, with payload and without payload, that could be helpful.

>What is the range of a ~$5K drone? Payload? Battery life? Knowing these approximate parameters would be quite useful for putting one's thinking cap on. If anyone has a good idea, with payload and without payload, that could be helpful.

The answers to your questions depend firstly on the type of drone: multicopter or fixed-wing. With a multicopter you are looking at a maximum flight time of around 30 minutes, give or take depending upon numerous variables such as the payload and specific application (for example, hovering in one place uses less power than moving around). The payload capacity of a ~$5K multicopter would be in the order of 10 - 15kg, although carrying anywhere near this weight would severely limit the flight time.

A similarly-priced fixed-wing drone could stay aloft a lot longer and also have a greater payload capacity - the downside is the inability to hover or do vertical take-off and landing.

There are of course hybrid designs, usually tilt-rotors, that attempt to get the best of both worlds.

The purpose of the supplement is to support research and experimentation, not define the price of the the service. The actual cost of the system or prototype may be more or less. This is just to help reward the time and effort people will put into developing their technical proposal. Hope that helps.

If you're really good, only hover in place and have zero payload, you can get 90 minute flight times. (Which, I believe, is the record for enthusiast electric multicopters.) My guess for payload of an electric multicopter would be up to 5 kg, but the tradeoff is flight times in the single digits of minutes.

"The international category has a prize pool of $1,000,000 USD and the national category has a $1,000,000 AED reward."

How'bout a drone to enforce the death penalty for the open practice of homosexuality (UAE being one of 10 countries in the world to do so):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_United_Arab_Emi...

http://www.arablawsworld.com/uae-laws-in-english.php

Or to assist with the forced deportation of Shi'ites:

http://abna.co/data.asp?lang=3&id=390575

Or torture drones for jails (torture being a "systematic practice" in UAE state security facilities, according to HRW):

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/27/uae-reports-systematic-to...

Or a drone to help husbands "chastise" their wives (or children) -- being as "the UAE penal code, sanctions beating and other forms of punishment or coercion providing the violence leaves no physical marks" -- as determined in 2010 by the UAE's highest court:

https://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/19/uae-spousal-abuse-nev...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/10/19/uae.court.ruling/i...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/UAE-cou...

Or my personal favorite, the Sheik Issa Mark V -- a drone that can run over a man while driving a Mercedes SUV; rub salt into his wounds; and set his genitals afire with lighter fluid -- all while instructing a camereman (filming everything for the world to see), "Get closer. Get closer. Get closer. Let his suffering show":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issa_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan#Trial...

The possibilities are endless.

Positive activities like this competition will probably help make an end to this insanity so I don't see what exactly is your point?

Positive activities like this competition will probably help make an end to this insanity

How, exactly?

So lets shit on NSF grants that fund research for various things because the USA does evil shit too.

Not a bad analogy (despite the fecal reference). Arguably the U.S. should also have been sanctioned by the world community for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram and elsewhere. Not to mention for the conditions endured by prisoners in solitary confinement in its own domestic system.

But what you need to understand is that the UAE is perfectly aware of its horrendous human rights record, and so undertakes "feel good" campaigns like this "good drones" program (and its partnership with NYU... and all the scholarships, and funding for the arts) specifically to distract your attention, and to burnish its image.

And BTW, speaking of shit:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - An American held in the United Arab Emirates for nine months for his role in an online parody video about youth culture in Dubai said Friday that he was scared at times and was kept in filthy conditions where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs."

...

Cassim said he stayed for about two months in the Dubai jail, where guards "shouted at everyone like dogs" and conducted room searches in full riot gear. The food was abysmal, and for a time Cassim ate just enough bread to keep himself going.

He said the conditions were unsanitary. Blankets were shared without being washed, and 130 people had to use a communal bathroom.

"The smell was horrendous," he said, adding that he thought the toilets were made of clay until one detainee cleaned them - only to find they were metal and had been covered with caked-on feces. When the communal sink was cleaned with bleach, he said, black maggots crawled out from the tile.

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/01/17/american-recounts-expe...

That's good to see. There's the potential for drone-friendly governments to leave drone-unfriendly governments in the dust for what is certain to be a major industry in the next decade.

The article seems to contradict itself -- it offers $1M USD and then offers $1M AED, even providing an estimated USD value after exchange rate.

On the official website[1] it's quite clear: there are two competitions, one national with a $1M AED prize and one international with a $1M USD prize.

Regardless, this is fascinating and it exemplifies the value of drones in the same way that smartphones are valuable -- cheap, ubiquitous computers. In this case they can provide telemetry and transportation mechanisms instead of providing a means of personal communication.

[1] http://dronesforgood.ae/?p=en

>The article seems to contradict itself -- it offers $1M USD and then offers $1M AED, even providing an estimated USD value after exchange rate.

I guess you missed the second paragraph where it states "The award is comprised of a national and international category."

The third and fourth paragraphs then provide detail about each of these categories.

Sorry if this was unclear.

Yes, it was a bit unclear. It should be made quite clear that there are two prizes, and the title itself is misleading in that regard.

From the website:

"The UAE "Drones for Good" Award has two parts:

- National competition - International competition

The National competition carries an award of 1 million AED. It is dedicated to rewarding the best, most practical ideas for using UAV technologies today for civilian government services in the UAE. Submissions must be readily deployable within 12 months, must function safely and effectively, and must fulfil a real citizen need or government service.

The International competition carries an award of $1 million USD. It is dedicated to exploring future prototypes of how UAVs might be used to improve the lives of humanity in general, focusing on what may be possible in the next 1 to 3 years. It is designed to stimulate innovation and accelerate the development of advanced prototypes, which could ultimately lead to practical solutions for improving people’s lives around the world."

In other words:

An award to the person that ensures predator drones comb the skies over UAE, armed with deadly hellfire missiles, permanently. Drones, for good.

Oculus Rift Drone Quidditch.

"Wife hunter" it's a drone / iphone app that lets the drone scour the city for another potential wife of the Sheikh. It will then stalk the girl, and send a notification to the Sheikh which if he so choses will both tranquilize her and dispatch his private attack fleet to airlift her to his 180 meter yacht where they will both be served caviar and arranged marriage contracts.

Please re-read the HN guidelines. Comments like this should not be posted here.

Agreed, moreover the UAE is pretty forward-looking relative to the rest of its region, and minority and womens rights are much better protected there than in most countries in the Gulf. Propagating stereotypes about the behavior of the royal family does nothing to help the cause.

Wow, bigotry and hatred much?

Isn't this the same add from Amazon?

Except it's not one million USD. Also it's only open to citizens and residents of UAE.

>Except it's not one million USD. Also it's only open to citizens and residents of UAE.

The one million USD prize is for the international category of the award, and it is open to anyone. Check the official website: http://dronesforgood.ae/

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