Early on a June morning in 2023, my colleagues and I drove down a bumpy dirt road north of Kyiv in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces were conducting training exercises nearby, and mortar shells arced through the sky.
We arrived at a vast field for a technology demonstration set up by the United Nations. Across the 25-hectare field—that’s about the size of 62 American football fields—the U.N. workers had scattered 50 to 100 inert mines and other ordnance. Our task was to fly our drone over the area and use our machine learning software to detect as many as possible. And we had to turn in our results within 72 hours. The scale was daunting: The area was 10 times as large as anything we’d attempted before with our drone demining startup, Safe Pro AI.
Read more…
Source: IEEE Spectrum
Related:
- US provided $38M for humanitarian mine action programs in Azerbaijan
July 18, 2024
Since 1999, the United States has provided almost $38 million to support humanitarian mine action programs in Azerbaijan, the US Embassy in Baku said on X, Report informs. The embassy congratulated the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) on its 26th anniversary. Read more… Source: Report News Sign up for our Newsletter Related:
- Vietnam: British organisation supports Quang Binh in UXO clearance
July 17, 2024
The central province of Quang Binh, one of the localities most affected by unexploded ordnance (UXO) left over from the war, has benefited from UXO risk education, survey and clearance activities implemented by British non-governmental organisation Mines Advisory Group (MAG). Nguyen Van Chien, a resident of Cu Nam commune, Bo Trach district, used to live and ...
- Belgian government to allocate EUR 1M for mine action project in Ukraine
July 12, 2024
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine has signed a financing agreement worth EUR 1 million with the Government of Belgium for the implementation of the UNDP’s Mine Action Project in Ukraine. According to the UNDP website, this agreement will be implemented until December 31, 2025, Ukrinform reports. “Belgium’s contribution to the Mine Action Project ...
- UN Establishes Ukraine Community Recovery Fund
July 9, 2024
The United Nations in Ukraine, in coordination with the government, has established a flexible Ukraine Community Recovery Fund (UCRF), which has already attracted $7.25 million for mine action. It is specified that the UCRF, established in November 2023, is expected to raise $300 million over five years. By the beginning of May this year, $11.74 million ...
- Getting to Completion: Funding Mine and Cluster Munition Clearance in Lebanon, Mauritania and Zimbabwe
July 8, 2024
A survey of clearance operators and national authorities provides insight into how close three countries are to removing all anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions. This policy brief summarises data collected for Lebanon, Mauritania and Zimbabwe on budgets for clearing anti-personnel land mines and cluster munitions. This data has been collected for a pilot study funded by ...
- Japan and Cambodia to aid Ukraine with mine clearance efforts
July 7, 2024
On Saturday, 6 July, Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Yōko Kamikawa announced a joint project with Cambodia on sharing mine-clearance knowledge and technology with countries worldwide, including Ukraine. Kamikawa made this statement during her visit to the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, established in the 1990s at the end of decades of civil war in the country. ...
- Colombia Committed to Clearing Antipersonnel Mines
July 3, 2024
For seven years, soldiers from the Colombian National Army’s Humanitarian Demining Engineer Battalion No. 2 have been working on eliminating explosive devices in the municipality of Roncesvalles, Tolima department, in Colombia’s central mountain range. In this area, where 14 victims of anti-personnel mines were recorded during this period, deminers were present in 27 sectors, the National ...
- The Government of Sweden extends its support to explosive hazards management and national mine action capability enhancement activities in Iraq
July 2, 2024
The Government of Sweden has recently contributed an additional 10 million Swedish Krona (SEK) (USD 952,560.54) to the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq in support of humanitarian mine action initiatives, to reduce the threat from explosive ordnance (EO) contamination and to protect Iraq’s most vulnerable communities. Since 2018, the Government of Sweden, through ...
- Japan Recognized as Long-Term Partner in Humanitarian Mine Action in Cambodia
July 2, 2024
On July 1, 2024, at the Office of the Mine Authority, Dr. Ly Thuch, Senior Minister and First Deputy Minister of the Mine Authority, met with Mr. Ueno Atsushi, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Cambodia, to strengthen cooperation in the field of mine action. On behalf of Prime Minister Hun Manet, Senior Minister Ly ...
- The Government of Belgium Provides Additional Contribution to UNMAS in Support of the Iraqi Mine Action Sector
July 1, 2024
The United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq welcomes a new contribution of EUR 750,000 (approximately USD 813,075) from the Government of Belgium, in support of humanitarian mine action endeavors in Iraq. Belgium has been a consistent supporter of UNMAS Iraq activities in support of sustainable and efficient explosive hazard management as well as technical ...
- Ukraine: 30,000 square kilometers of land cleared of mine threats, operations expanding further
June 30, 2024
Ukrainian Colonel Ruslan Berehulia, head of the Ministry of Defense’s Environmental Safety and Mine Action Department, reported that Defense Ministry specialists have cleared 30,000 square kilometers of Ukraine over the past two years – an area comparable to the size of Belgium or Moldova. Since 2022, approximately 174,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian land have been contaminated ...
- Vietnam renews commitment to minimizing risks from landmines
June 29, 2024
Ambassador Mai Phan Dung, Vietnam’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, World Trade Organisation (WTO), and other international organisations in Geneva, pledged Vietnam’s active participation in the council’s joint work. He also highlighted Vietnam’s dedication to effective cooperation with the Council in the coming time. He specifically underlined ongoing mine clearance projects in Vietnam and expressed ...
- Cambodia highlights challenges for mine-free efforts
June 28, 2024
While praising the international community’ successes towards achieving the objectives of the Oslo Action Plan, Cambodia has pointed out that several significant challenges remain. In his opening remarks at the “Preparing for Success at the Fifth Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty” at Wilton Park from June 24th–26th, 2024, Ly Thuch, First Vice-President of the ...
- Sri Lanka: Japan to extend its support to Humanitarian Demining Activities in Northern and Eastern Provinces
June 28, 2024
On the 27th of June 2024, His Excellency Mr. MIZUKOSHI Hideaki, Ambassador of Japan, signed the grant contracts of two demining projects under the scheme of “Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP)”, with Ms. Cristy McLennan, Country Director of the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and Mr. Peter Hugh Scott Baker, Programme Manager of ...
- Ukraine: The government has allowed humanitarian demining operators to book all their sappers
June 25, 2024
Enterprises certified as mine action operators will be able to book 100% of the groups or departments that directly conduct mine clearance, according to the government’s decision. The Cabinet of ministers has adopted a decision that provides that enterprises that are certified Mine Action operators will be able to book 100% of the composition of groups ...
- EU to allocate an additional €10M for demining in Azerbaijan
June 25, 2024
The EU, together with its Member States, is to date the biggest international donor in the field of mine action in Azerbaijan, as illustrated by the launch of a “Team Europe Initiative” earlier in May. In the wake of President von der Leyen’s phone call with the President Aliyev on 4 April, the EU is now ...
- Private sector’s contribution to mine clearance activities to help resolve the global mine crisis
June 21, 2024
The private sector’s contribution to humanitarian mine action efforts will help resolve the global mine crisis and accelerate the journey to a mine-free world. The remarks were made by Senior Minister Ly Thuch, First Vice President of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority and President of the Mine Ban Convention 2024, during a meeting ...
- Ireland boosts support for Cambodia’s mine clearance efforts
June 14, 2024
In a move to aid humanitarian mine action in Cambodia, the Irish ambassador to Cambodia Deirdre Ni Fhalluin, along with Niall Tierney, director of Global Programmes at Irish Aid, visited the HALO Cambodia team in Siem Reap province on June 14. The trip focused on evaluating the impact of Ireland’s contributions and presenting new equipment to ...
- Belgium gives new contribution of €1.5 million to humanitarian demining in Iraq and Syria
June 13, 2024
In the framework of support given since 2019 to the activities of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) in Iraq and Syria, Belgium has decided on a new contribution of 1.5 million euros in 2024. In recent years, Belgium has supported demining in Iraq and Syria for more than 11 million euros. The need for demining ...
- Ukraine: Women deminers step in to clear up land
June 11, 2024
Deminer Tetiana Shpak crouched down in a once tranquil poppy-strewn field in southern Ukraine, now littered with Russian mines. More women like her are joining mine-clearance teams, where they now account for 30 percent of personnel, according to official data. A similar trend has unfolded in other professions once dominated by men that have been drained ...
- Libya: Deadly landmines pose hidden threat in Tripoli
June 7, 2024
Hundreds of deadly landmines and unexploded ordnance still litter parts of Libya after years of fighting, posing a constant danger to civilians, especially children, long after the conflict. Although relative calm has returned to the oil-rich country since the battle for Tripoli four years ago, the United Nations says more than 400 people, including 26 children, ...
- Angola: Clearing minefields in the Lobito Corridor
June 5, 2024
This strategic region of Angola suffered enormously during the civil war. It is now key to Angola’s future prosperity. The Benguela Railway Company was founded in 1903 to begin construction of a line running from Lobito on Angola’s Atlantic coast to the eastern border with what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It took ...