Municipality starts to provide drone training

ISTANBUL

The Istanbul Municipality has embarked upon providing drone piloting education to young people, enhancing its capabilities to gather information from inaccessible regions and to achieve swifter coordination during disaster scenarios.

Emphasizing the significance of drones in both damage assessment and search and rescue operations during earthquakes, the municipality has revealed its intention to introduce the UAV project to ensure uninterrupted communication and image transmission in the event of disasters, especially in a potential earthquake in Istanbul.

In pursuit of contributing to youth employment as well, the municipality initiated the "Starry Youth of the Sky Project" last year. Following the completion of applications, training sessions have commenced.

The project primarily focuses on enhancing the capacity for information acquisition and image transmission during critical emergency situations and disasters, while also concentrating on the development of UAV-based intervention concepts and their integration into existing decision support systems, forming a pivotal part of the project.

The project aims to employ young individuals in innovative and technically demanding fields, increasing the number of licensed young drone pilots. Applicants for the project must be between 18 and 29 years old, university students, or recent graduates residing in Istanbul.

Following the acquisition of the necessary UAV infrastructure, personnel will also receive training.

Geoscientists have long been warning Istanbul, situated in an earthquake-prone region, against a tremor with a magnitude of 7 or higher. In the wake of earthquakes that claimed the lives of over 50,000 people in the southern part of the country on Feb. 6, authorities are diligently working on various fronts to prepare Istanbul for a potential earthquake.