Drone Delivery Canada inks agreement with GlobalMedic for COVID-19 project

Drone Delivery Canada (DDC), with the assistance of Air Canada and the Pontiac Group, has entered into a commercial agreement with GlobalMedic to deploy DDC’s patented drone delivery solution to provide service to the Beausoleil First Nation (BFN) community in Ontario. Funding for the project was received by donors, including from OEC Group (Canada), a leading global logistics provider servicing clients in all major industries including aerospace, healthcare, global retail, automotive and manufacturing.

Under the agreement, DDC will enable a two-way delivery flight route from/to BFN mainland to/from the BFN Christian Island utilising the Sparrow drone and its DroneSpot takeoff and landing zones as well as additional drone flight infrastructure as required. All operations will be conducted in accordance with the Canadian Aviation Regulations and Transport Canada flight authorizations. Flights will be remotely monitored by DDC from its new commercial operations centre located in Vaughan, Ontario. DDC will commence deployment of site infrastructure shortly and expects to begin providing drone delivery services under the agreement in Q3 2020.

BFN will use DDC’s Sparrow drone solution to limit person-to-person contact on its island ferry service by transporting COVID-19 related cargo such as PPE, hygiene kits, test kits, test swabs, and so on.

The agreement provides for the payment of an up-front, fixed-fee for managed services for the project.  The term of the agreement is six months.

“We are pleased to announce GlobalMedic as another paid commercial drone logistics customer.  The Beausoleil First Nation community will benefit from our drone delivery solution during the COVID-19 pandemic by limiting person-to-person contact between the mainland and Christian Island, while keeping their supply chain open.  Our solution is ideal for this application and we look forward to seeing the benefits for the Community,” said Michael Zahra, president and CEO of DDC.  

“To our knowledge this is the first announced COVID-19 related drone logistics project working with a humanitarian aid agency in Canada.  We are grateful to GlobalMedic, OEC Group and other generous donors for their sincere concern for First Nations communities, involvement in this project and embracing our drone technology as a solution.”

Rahul Singh, executive director at GlobalMedic added: “GlobalMedic is proud to be part of this programme using drones to deliver desperately needed aid to an isolated First Nations Community. Through consultation with the Community we understand that supply chain issues exist and have been exacerbated by COVID19. We are excited to use drones as part of the solution to overcome these challenges. We have a well-known history of using drones to respond to crisis zones having deployed our drone teams to dozens of countries using our award winning RescUAV program. We thank the OEC group and other donors to help fund this project and look forward to seeing DDC drones in the air delivering lifesaving aid to our friends in Beausoleil First Nation.”