Zipline, International Inc., a logistics company that warehouses and delivers vital supplies to the last mile, using autonomous unmanned aircraft system (UAS), began operations in Kaduna and is set to extend to other parts of the country.
Speaking at a Media roundtable in Lagos on Thursday, the General Manager of Zipline Nigeria, Ms. Catherine Odiase, said the American-owned company is excited to be in Nigeria, starting from Rwanda, to Ghana and now Nigeria.
“We are starting off in Kaduna where we have already started operations. We are going to have three hubs in Kaduna, we started with one already which launched in June with commercial operations fully in August. Right now we are excited to let you know that we have started saving lives in Kaduna with our deliveries. We have done over 3000 deliveries so far and still counting.”
On the benefit of Ziplines’s presence in Nigeria, Odiase said “Each of the countries we are operating from {Rwanda, Ghana, now Nigeria, with Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire in the pipeline) a lot of benefits are there for these communities and states that we are delivering from. For instance, we are saving lives already and we have a 3 steps agenda, the first one is the transformation agenda where we are transforming the health care system in the state where we operate and the second one is saving lives while the third one is building capacity for the indigene of the state and we use local and hyper-local people in our operations in different hubs. We are setting up currently in Bayelsa and cross river State, with a lot of other states in the pipeline.
The distribution center, located in Pambegua, Kaduna state, is the first of the 3 hubs to be opened in Nigeria to support the government’s effort to send medical logistics to health facilities within the state. with the capacity of delivering medical supplies to over 500 health facilities within an 80km radius at a speed of 110km/hr. Zipline also has the capacity to deliver other products including animal health vaccines and e-commerce products.
Catherine Odiase General Manager Zipline Nigeria Addressing the media in Lagos on Thursday
