Here are the 5 Winners of the 2019 AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Award

The five winners of the second annual XCELLENCE Humanitarian Award have been announced at AUVSI XPONENTIAL. 

The award was once again sponsored by DJI. 

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Drones for Good: The Winners

The 2019 AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian Award was dedicated to celebrating drone operations and technologies that have had a profound impact for good. The proper type of good, not just the financial type of good. The five winners included disaster relief and public safety operations, education and training, firefighting and wildlife conservation.

This year’s winners are:

• North Carolina Department of Transportation – Using drones in an innovative response to Hurricane Florence (United States)
• Swoop Aero – Vaccine and health supply delivery on the island nation of Vanuatu (Vanuatu)
• NASA/MIT Search and Rescue Under the Canopy (SARUC) – Locating people and other important targets lost in challenging and cluttered forest areas (United States)
• Project Lifesaver International – Search and rescue for ‘at risk’ individuals who are prone to the life-threatening behavior of wandering (United States)
• Zipline International – Medical drone delivery operations in Africa 

Read more: Drone Delivery Heroes Zipline Launch World’s Largest Vaccine Delivery Network in Ghana

“The Humanitarian Awards demonstrate the profound ability of the recipients to positively impact lives through unmanned systems technology,” said Brian Wynne, president and CEO of AUVSI.

“We proudly recognize the five winners and hope their accomplishments will serve as an inspiration to utilize unmanned aircraft systems to accomplish remarkable achievements for our society.”

“True proof of drone innovation”

“We’ve seen an expanding implementation of drone technology in the past year, from locating humans lost under cluttered forest canopies, to dropping critical medications in Africa, Oceania and Latin America, to enabling students to program drones and fly autonomous missions,” said Mario Rebello, Country Manager for North America and Vice President of the Americas at DJI.

Read more: Drones for Good: Lifesaving Vaccines Will Be Delivered by Drone this December in this Unicef Project

“These innovators are a true proof of drone innovation driven not just by the technology itself, but by its users. We are thrilled to see drones embraced widely across an expanding range of industries, and we hope the award will inspire more drone operators around the world to accomplish great feats in their own communities.”

All five organizations will receive a $5,000 donation for their ground-breaking humanitarian and philanthropic efforts.