73 Protecting and Securing Our Nation Deminers in Chad download drone data into ArcGIS to map the extent of the minefield. (Photo courtesy of John Fardoulis and Humanity & Inclusion) “Say we take 3,000 photos, like I did today of a 400,000-square-meter area,” Fardoulis said. “GIS allows us to plot and analyze each photo and to draw evidence points as pins on the map.” Deminers take the map into the field using a GIS app on phones or tablets. They cross-check mine locations identified by drone imagery with manual, mechanical, or animal detection systems before carefully taking out each mine. They capture their work on the map to share where they have been and record which areas still need to be cleared. The data collection and visualization made possible by GIS helps garner support from operational teams and regional management, as well as donors and national and international humanitarian organizations. In 2020, the Odyssey 2025 project received the European Innovation Council’s Union Horizon Prize and has used the €1 million award to expand its reach and further its innovation. Building Capacity in Ukraine The lessons learned by teams from Humanity & Inclusion and Mobility Robotics over the past five years are now being applied in Ukraine—where there is the world’s largest concentration of minefields. The new thermal method effective in the sands of Chad doesn’t work in Ukraine’s denser soils. Instead, Fardoulis and team have been perfecting high-resolution mapping with outputs called orthomosaics to visually inspect fields. Because the conflict is so fresh, this high-resolution imagery can show unexploded bombs sitting on the surface or reveal disturbances in the dirt that signal potential buried mines. Humanity & Inclusion and Mobility Robotics are working with The HALO Trust, which employs more than 1,200 Ukrainian staff, to conduct demining work across the country. One struggle the collective teams currently face is the shortage of drone mapping specialists. Their ambition is to democratize the technology so fleets of drones can document damage nationwide while evidence of the conflict remains visible. “Ukraine might be the place where we can finally scale up what we’ve been trying to do everywhere,” Depreytere said. “But we have to act quickly to capture the damage because vegetation covers up all the craters, all the trenches, and the explosive ordnance on the surface.”
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