Garuda Aerospace forays into Africa

Drone start-up Garuda Aerospace has forayed into African market by partnering with Zimbabwe-based Harare Institute of Technology and Nyangani Virtual University as part of its plans to strengthen footprint overseas, the company said on Wednesday.

The Chennai-headquartered company made its overseas foray into Malaysia in June 2022 by inking a strategic partnership with HiiLSE Drones to set up a drone production facility.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said, ''Garuda Aerospace now makes an entry into Africa...will deploy drones for the agriculture sector, for the purpose of large scaling mapping, inspection and training for better agricultural output.'' The partnership with Harare Institute of Technology and Nyangani Virtual University in Zimbabwe would enable better farming techniques with the use of cutting-edge technology by both government and private sector, it said.

''With this partnership we aim to add value to the agriculture ecosystem by powering them with drones that are enabled with advanced AI (artifical intelligence), ML (machine learning) and deep learning technologies,'' company founder-CEO Agnishwar Jayaprakash said.

''Garuda Aerospace has transcended into India's most valuable drone start-up and now aims to scale globally with meeting desired goals,'' he said.