ENVIRONMENT/ENERGY
FRONTIERS PHOTONICS
Drones can carry a few litres of insecticide
where most of the habitats are across sparse areas and in a short amount of time. If you send a ground survey, and you’ve
got a couple acres of an agro-ecological ecosystem near a village, for example, how are you going to localise all of the habitats if there is tall grass and canopy? By using the spectral signature mechanism, we’re able to find these habitats very quickly and very efficiently. And the rate at which habitats are detected has never fallen below 92.57%.
What has been key to people adopting the technology? I think making a solution that actually solves a problem effectively is important, more efficiently or cost-effectively than existing methods. So, we are using less chemicals, and it’s cost-friendly, which is important in countries where there is less money to invest. The drone only requires a battery change every 45 minutes, and can carry a few litres of insecticide. The technology is very teachable. It’s all controlled through apps that are easy – and even fun – to use. During my current placement in Angola, I am training 75 young people across five villages about habitat burial and drone operation. They love learning about the technology, and once you start talking handheld, it almost
becomes like a video game. And that’s what I wanted, actually, because most of the people that will be taking this project forward are teenagers. And they get to go out to the fields and do something that’s not only fun, but that they earn money via local government scholarships. Social and cultural differences play a role
in technology adoption. In small African villages, there’s no Wi-Fi in certain locations and oral communication becomes a methodology. We’re not trying to change this social culture, but just infuse technology into their way of life. My goal is that the local people adapt to it. It can’t be me flying to Africa to continue the project, it has to be sustainable. I think another point is how you sell the benefits of the technology to the people that will ultimately be using it. I hate to say this, but a lot of entomologists that came to Africa in the past were just selling the concept of insecticide dispersal, which I think was a travesty, but it was primarily because they didn’t understand the genomics of the mosquito. The mosquito is highly effective at genetically adapting. Previously, people were going out to find
habitats, getting GPS points, putting them on spreadsheets, time-lagging and then they would send out teams to sample the
“The system works by identifying specific environments and organisms by the spectral fingerprint associated exclusively with a species or habitat”
habitat. By this time, people living nearby were bitten and infected, which doesn’t help to achieve buy-in. Malaria mosquitoes habitats emerge very quickly – if a truck makes an indent on a gravel road and it rains, you have a habitat. We can now put the breeding site points into a handout which the young project participants can bury. I think we buried well over 400 habitats today in Angola. For the larger sites, the drone will be used. With this method we are stopping
transmission by attacking the vector source. Other methods to reduce transmission have included, for example, the distribution of bed nets, which is only playing defence, and it doesn’t fit into the lifestyle here. They are not used because it is too hot, and they are impractical for nursing mothers, for example. Bed nets become fishing nets here, unfortunately. I’m not saying take away the bed net, but why not add a technological tool to the existing solutions? l
Photonics Frontiers 2023 11
Benjamin Jacob / University of South Florida
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