A team from UNICEF Austria with some of the organisation’s private donors and corporate partners recently visited the African Drone and Data Academy (ADDA) at MUST to appreciate the academy’s work and plans.

The visit on May 27, 2024, was led by UNICEF Austria’s executive director, Christoph Junger.

In her remarks, MUST vice chancellor Professor Malata thanked UNICEF Malawi for its continued support to the ADDA and its efforts to woe more partners to the Academy, such as UNICEF Austria.

She said ADDA has made a huge impact both in Malawi and other African countries where some of students over the years have come from.

“In Malawi, most of the ADDA graduates have established their own companies and are into consultancies in various sectors such as health. Even the ADDA itself has also collaborated with both private and public organisations to train staff in areas where they can use drone technology. These include the Malawi Revenue Authority and the Department of Disaster management Affairs where in their disaster management taskforce, they have now included a team on drone,” she said, adding that ADDA has thus contributed in disaster mapping in the country’s recent disasters leading to easy and rapid response management by the authorities.

Under that initiative, ADDA is now working on creating disaster database that will include baseline data that could be compared with situations after disasters have hit and also mapping of disaster prone areas or those that have recently been hit.

ADDA also shared with the UNICEF team its plans going forward and some of the works they have done.

In his remarks, Junger thanked MUST for hosting them, saying where they come from there is a different perspective about Africa and being on the ground to appreciate the work of ADDA and some of their beneficiaries goes a long way in building a better case for more support.

He also said the visit will help in building stronger collaborations among UNICEF Austria, UNICEF Malawi and ADDA.