One billion people in the world today do not have access to all-season roads. One billion people. One seventh of the Earth's population are totally cut off for some part of the year. We cannot get medicine to them reliably, they cannot get critical supplies, and they cannot get their goods to market in order to create a sustainable income. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, 85 percent of roads are unusable in the wet season. Investments are being made, but at the current level, it's estimated it's going to take them 50 years to catch up. In the U.S. alone, there's more than four million miles of roads, very expensive to build, very expensive to maintain infrastructure, with a huge ecological footprint, and yet, very often, congested.
Milijarda ljudi u današnjem svetu nema pristup celogodišnjim putevima. Jedna milijarda. Sedmina svetske populacije je totalno odsečena u nekom delu godine. Ne možemo im pouzdano dostaviti lekove, ne mogu da nabave važne zalihe, niti da iznesu svoju robu na tržište kako bi obezbedili održive prihode. U subsaharskoj Africi, na primer, 85 procenata puteva je neupotrebljivo tokom kišne sezone. Ulaganja ima, ali prema trenutnoj brzini, procenjeno je da će im trebati 50 godina da nas sustignu. Samo u Americi, ima više od četiri miliona kilometara puteva, veoma skupih za izgradnju, veoma skupih za održavanje, sa velikim ekološkim posledicama, pa ipak, veoma često, zagušenim.
So we saw this and we thought, can there be a better way? Can we create a system using today's most advanced technologies that can allow this part of the world to leapfrog in the same way they've done with mobile telephones in the last 10 years? Many of those nations have excellent telecommunications today without ever putting copper lines in the ground. Could we do the same for transportation?
Zato smo razmišljali postoji li bolje rešenje? Možemo li da napravimo sistem koristeći najnaprednije tehnologije koji će omogućiti ovom delu sveta da odskoči kao što su to uspeli sa mobilnim telefonima u poslednjih 10 godina? Mnoge od tih nacija danas imaju odlične telekomunikacije bez postavljanja bilo kakvih kablova u zemlju. Možemo li učiniti isto i sa transportom?
Imagine this scenario. Imagine you are in a maternity ward in Mali, and have a newborn in need of urgent medication. What would you do today? Well, you would place a request via mobile phone, and someone would get the request immediately. That's the part that works. The medication may take days to arrive, though, because of bad roads. That's the part that's broken.
Zamislite ovakav scenario. Nalazite se u porodilištu u Maliju, i imate novorođenče kome hitno trebaju lekovi. Šta biste danas preduzeli? Pa, poslali biste zahtev mobilnim telefonom a neko bi istog trenutka primio zahtev. Taj deo štima. Ali lekovima treba nekoliko dana da stignu zbog loših puteva. Taj deo priče ne valja.
We believe we can deliver it within hours with an electric autonomous flying vehicle such as this. This can transport a small payload today, about two kilograms, over a short distance, about 10 kilometers, but it's part of a wider network that may cover the entire country, maybe even the entire continent. It's an ultra-flexible, automated logistics network. It's a network for a transportation of matter. We call it Matternet.
Mi bismo ga isporučili u roku od nekoliko sati pomoću bespilotne električne letelice kao što je ova. Trenutno može da prenese mali teret, oko dva kilograma, na malu razdaljinu, oko 10 kilometara, ali je deo šire mreže koja može da pokrije čitavu jednu državu, a možda i kontinent. To je izuzetno fleksibilna, automatizovana logistička mreža. To je mreža za transport stvari. Zovemo je ,,Matternet''.
We use three key technologies. The first is electric autonomous flying vehicles. The second is automated ground stations that the vehicles fly in and out of to swap batteries and fly farther, or pick up or deliver loads. And the third is the operating system that manages the whole network.
Koristimo tri ključne tehnologije. Prva je bespilotna električna letelica. Druga je automatizovana stanica na zemlji koju bi letelica koristila kao međustanicu za zamenu baterija i dalji let, ili za podizanje i dostavu paketa. Treća je operativni sistem koji upravlja celom mrežom.
Let's look at each one of those technologies in a bit more detail. First of all, the UAVs. Eventually, we're going to be using all sorts of vehicles for different payload capacities and different ranges. Today, we're using small quads. These are able to transport two kilograms over 10 kilometers in just about 15 minutes. Compare this with trying to trespass a bad road in the developing world, or even being stuck in traffic in a developed world country. These fly autonomously. This is the key to the technology. So they use GPS and other sensors on board to navigate between ground stations. Every vehicle is equipped with an automatic payload and battery exchange mechanism, so these vehicles navigate to those ground stations, they dock, swap a battery automatically, and go out again. The ground stations are located on safe locations on the ground. They secure the most vulnerable part of the mission, which is the landing. They are at known locations on the ground, so the paths between them are also known, which is very important from a reliability perspective from the whole network. Apart from fulfilling the energy requirements of the vehicles, eventually they're going to be becoming commercial hubs where people can take out loads or put loads into the network. The last component is the operating system that manages the whole network. It monitors weather data from all the ground stations and optimizes the routes of the vehicles through the system to avoid adverse weather conditions, avoid other risk factors, and optimize the use of the resources throughout the network.
Pogledajmo svaku od ovih tehnologija malo detaljnije. Prvo, letelice. Vremenom, koristićemo širok spektar vozila za različite terete i distance. Trenutno koristimo male kvadkoptere. Oni mogu da prenesu dva kilograma na udaljenost od 10 km za samo 15ak minuta. Uporedite ovo sa prelaskom preko loših puteva u zemljama u razvoju, ili situacijom kad se zaglavite u saobraćaju u razvijenoj zemlji. Ove mašine lete samostalno. To je suština tehnologije. Dakle koriste GPS i druge senzore za navigaciju između stanica. Svako vozilo je opremljeno mehanizmom za automatsku zamenu tereta i baterije, tako da ova vozila lete do stanica, prikače se, automatski zamene bateriju, i potom idu dalje. Stanice su postavljene na sigurnim lokacijama na zemlji. One su tu za najosetljiviji deo misije, a to je sletanje. Nalaze se na tačno određenim lokacijama na zemlji, te su i putanje među njima poznate, što je veoma važno sa aspekta pouzdanosti cele mreže. Osim što vozila snabdevaju neophodnom energijom, vremenom će postati komercijalni čvorovi odakle ljudi mogu podići ili poslati pakete. Poslednja komponenta je operativni sistem koji upravlja celom mrežom. On prima podatke o vremenskim prilikama sa svih stanica i optimizuje putanju vozila u sistemu izbegavajući nepovoljne vremenske prilike, i ostale faktore rizika, i optimizuje opterećenje mreže.
I want to show you what one of those flights looks like. Here we are flying in Haiti last summer, where we've done our first field trials. We're modeling here a medical delivery in a camp we set up after the 2010 earthquake. People there love this.
Pokazaću vam kako jedan takav let izgleda. Ovo je let u Haitiju od lani, na kome smo uradili prvu terensku probu. Ovde modelujemo medicinsku isporuku u kampu koji smo podigli nakon zemljotresa 2010. Ljudi su tamo oduševljeni.
And I want to show you what one of those vehicles looks like up close. So this is a $3,000 vehicle. Costs are coming down very rapidly. We use this in all sorts of weather conditions, very hot and very cold climates, very strong winds. They're very sturdy vehicles. Imagine if your life depended on this package, somewhere in Africa or in New York City, after Sandy. The next big question is, what's the cost?
Pokazaću vam kako u stvarnosti izgleda jedno ovakvo vozilo. Ovo vozilo vredi 3000 dolara. Troškovi se velikom brzinom smanjuju. Koristimo ga u svim vremenskim uslovima, i u vrelim i u veoma hladnim klimama, sa veoma jakim vetrovima. Izuzetno je otporno. Zamislite da vaš život zavisi od ovog paketa, i da ste negde u Africi ili u Njujorku, nakon Sendi. Sledeće važno pitanje jeste koliko košta?
Well, it turns out that the cost to transport two kilograms over 10 kilometers with this vehicle is just 24 cents.
Pa, ispostavlja se da je trošak isporuke dva kilograma na 10 kilometara ovim vozilom samo 24 centa.
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And it's counterintuitive, but the cost of energy expended for the flight is only two cents of a dollar today, and we're just at the beginning of this. When we saw this, we felt that this is something that can have significant impact in the world.
Zvuči kontraintuitivno, ali cena energije koja se utroši na let je samo dva centa današnjeg dolara, a tek smo počeli. Kada smo ovo shvatili, videli smo značaj koji bi ovo moglo da ima za svet.
So we said, okay, how much does it cost to set up a network somewhere in the world? And we looked at setting up a network in Lesotho for transportation of HIV/AIDS samples. The problem there is how do you take them from clinics where they're being collected to hospitals where they're being analyzed? And we said, what if we wanted to cover an area spanning around 140 square kilometers? That's roughly one and a half times the size of Manhattan. Well it turns out that the cost to do that there would be less than a million dollars. Compare this to normal infrastructure investments. We think this can be -- this is the power of a new paradigm.
Tako da smo se zapitali, dobro, koliko košta da se ovakva mreža uspostavi negde u svetu? I hteli smo da podignemo mrežu u Lesotu za transport uzoraka HIV/AIDS-a. Tamo je problem bio kako da ih prenesete od klinike gde se sakupljaju do bolnica gde se daju na analizu? Dakle, šta ako bismo hteli da pokrijemo oblast koja se prostire na 140 kvadratnih kilometara? To je površine reda veličine jednog i po Menhetna. Ispostavlja se da bi koštalo manje od milion dolara. Uporedite ovo sa uobičajenim ulaganjima u infrastrukturu. Mi mislimo da u ovome leži moć nove paradigme.
So here we are: a new idea about a network for transportation that is based on the ideas of the Internet. It's decentralized, it's peer-to-peer, it's bidirectional, highly adaptable, with very low infrastructure investment, very low ecological footprint. If it is a new paradigm, though, there must be other uses for it. It can be used perhaps in other places in the world.
Dakle, nova ideja o transportnoj mreži koja se bazira na ideji Interneta. Decentralizovana je, bez posrednika, dvosmerna, lako prilagodljiva, sa veoma malim infrastrukturnim ulaganjima, veoma malim posledicama po okolinu. Ako je to nova paradigma, međutim, mora da postoji još neka primena. Možda bi mogla da se koristi i drugde u svetu.
So let's look at the other end of the spectrum: our cities and megacities. Half of the Earth's population lives in cities today. Half a billion of us live in megacities. We are living through an amazing urbanization trend. China alone is adding a megacity the size of New York City every two years. These are places that do have road infrastructure, but it's very inefficient. Congestion is a huge problem. So we think it makes sense in those places to set up a network of transportation that is a new layer that sits between the road and the Internet, initially for lightweight, urgent stuff, and over time, we would hope to develop this into a new mode of transportation that is truly a modern solution to a very old problem. It's ultimately scalable with a very small ecological footprint, operating in the background 24/7, just like the Internet.
Pogledajmo drugi kraj spektra: naše gradove i megalopolise. Polovina zemaljske kugle danas živi u gradovima. Pola milijarde živi u megalopolisima. Živimo u neverovatnom urbanizacijskom trendu. Samo u Kini nikne jedan megalopolis veličine Njujorka na svake dve godine. Ovi gradovi imaju putnu infrastrukturu, ali je veoma neefikasna. Zastoji su ogroman problem. Tako da mislimo da ima smisla osnovati u tim mestima transportnu mrežu koja predstavlja novu instancu pored puta i Interneta, primarno za lagane, hitne pošiljke, a vremenom će se, nadamo se, razviti u novi vid transporta koji je moderno rešenje prastarog problema. Krajnje je nadogradiva, sa izuzetno malim posledicama po okolinu, radi neprestano, kao i Internet.
So when we started this a couple of years ago now, we've had a lot of people come up to us who said, "This is a very interesting but crazy idea, and certainly not something that you should engage with anytime soon." And of course, we're talking about drones, right, a technology that's not only unpopular in the West but one that has become a very, very unpleasant fact of life for many living in poor countries, especially those engaged in conflict.
Kada smo započeli ovaj projekat pre par godina, ljudi su nam često govorili: ,,Ovo je veoma zanimljiva ali luda ideja, i sigurno ne nešto čime bi trebalo da se bavite u skorije vreme.'' Naravno, pričamo o dronovima, dakle, o tehnologiji koja je ne samo nepopularna na zapadu već i koja je postala veoma neprijatna životna činjenica za mnoge koji žive u siromašnim zemljama, posebno onima koje su u sukobu.
So why are we doing this? Well, we chose to do this one not because it's easy, but because it can have amazing impact. Imagine one billion people being connected to physical goods in the same way that mobile telecommunications connected them to information. Imagine if the next big network we built in the world was a network for the transportation of matter. In the developing world, we would hope to reach millions of people with better vaccines, reach them with better medication. It would give us an unfair advantage against battling HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other epidemics. Over time, we would hope it would become a new platform for economic transactions, lifting millions of people out of poverty. In the developed world and the emerging world, we would hope it would become a new mode of transportation that could help make our cities more livable.
A zašto mi sve ovo radimo? Pa, odlučili smo da radimo ovo ne zato što je lako, nego zato što može biti od neverovatnog značaja. Zamislite jednu milijardu ljudi povezanu sa fizičkim dobrima na isti način na koji ih je mobilna telekomunikacija povezala sa informacijom. Zamislite kada bi sledeća velika mreža koja bi bila izgrađena u svetu bila mreža za transport materije. U zemljama u razvoju, nadamo se da će milioni ljudi doći do boljih vakcina, do boljih lekova. Stekli bismo ogromnu prednost u borbi sa HIV/AIDS-om, tuberkulozom i drugim epidemijama. Vremenom, nadamo se da će postati nova platforma za ekonomske transakcije, koja će izvući milione ljudi iz siromaštva. U razvijenom svetu i u svetu u razvoju, voleli bismo da postane novi vid transporta koji bi pomogao da naši gradovi budu bolji za život.
So for those that still believe that this is science fiction, I firmly say to you that it is not. We do need to engage, though, in social fiction to make it happen.
Za one koji i dalje veruju da je ovo naučna fantastika, tvrdim vam da nije. Međutim, moramo da se uključimo u društvenu fantastiku da bismo to ostvarili.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
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