

Satyendra Pathak

Doha

TWO Qatari companies working in area of robotics and drones have joined hands to launch autonomous delivery vehicles on pavements and in the air for 'last-mile' parcel delivery in The Netherlands.

Airlift and N-Gon have formed a joint venture called 'Geeba' to use cargo bikes without a driver (Droids) and drones in the sky that will pick up cargo from a smart hub and then deliver it to customers' doorsteps in Rotterdam.

Airlift will provide autonomous surface vehicles. And N-Gon will supply the drones for transportation through the air. 'Geeba' is in the process of developing blockchain technology that will connect all the autonomous vehicles through an online platform. The droids are expected to have a radius of 35 kilometers with a speed of 25 km/h and a maximum cargo load of 40 kg.

The Qatari firms have chosen The Netherlands to develop their innovation for a reason.

In an exclusive interview with Qatar Tribune recently, Geeba CEO Ahmed Mohamedali said,"As a startup you have to go through rigmarole to get approval for testing your product. In the Netherlands, especially in the western part of the country, the government is more lenient towards innovation and experiment. For instance, the process of getting approval for the testing of our vehicles from the government runs smoothly."

Furthermore, he said, this area in the Netherlands has a strong robotics and blockchain ecosystem, and the connection to the rest of the European market is strong.

"Those were the motives for us to establish our offices in Rotterdam," he said.

Mohamedali, who is also the CEO of Airlift operating from Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), said that Geeba is expected to start commercial operations in Rotterdam from the second quarter of next year. Rotterdam with its strong tradition in manufacturing, Mohamedali said, is an ideal place to start a business based on such innovations.

"The new company is being assisted by the Invest in Holland partnering the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), InnovationQuarter and Rotterdam Partners," he said.

"Airlift is aiming to deploy more than 100 of its robots and smart hubs in nine months from now. This requires growth of the team. It should reach 19 engineering and business employees in this period," Mohamedali said.

Mohamedali said that Geeba is starting to get into talks with PostNL, the premier provider of postal and parcel services in the Netherlands, to offer our services.

Praising the support provided by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Doha, Mohamedali said,"We have been getting full cooperation from Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Doha and the responsible government agencies in the Netherlands during all the stages of the project from starting with setting up offices to getting approvals for various tests to raising funds."

Mohamedali said that the new joint venture is also in talks with a number of global courier companies like DHL to discuss the feasibility of collaboration.

He also revealed that Geeba has sought for permission from Qatar's Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) to launch its services in prime localities like The Pearl-Qatar, Msheireb Downtown Doha and the upcoming Lusail City.

"Once our commercial operation begins in Rotterdam, we will focus on launching our services in Qatar. We have also initiated talks with a number of Qatari entities including Q-Post to support us in launching this innovative service in Qatar," he said.

Explaining the new innovation, Geeba Managing Director and N-Gon CEO Amr Abdelhady said,"The 'last-mile' in the delivery industry is the final segment of the parcel delivery journey where parcels are transported from a distribution hub or warehouse to the end-consumer's location. It's an expensive and resource-intensive part of parcel delivery."

Therefore, Abdelhady said, Geeba has a decentralised delivery ecosystem that enable businesses to operate deliveries with autonomous vehicles and smart hubs.

"The high costs, lack of efficiency, and demand of deliveries today enables Geeba to introduce a new approach to the industry by allowing the community to actively participate in the evolution through leveraging blockchain. We aim to work towards a fully decentralized autonomous delivery and economy," he said.

"We use ground robots and drones for delivery because we believe it'll reduce the cost of delivery by 50 percent and make the service flexible and available 24/7 to customers buying products online," he added.

"We also use blockchain technology which is a newly emerging technology to add visibility and predictability to logistics operations to accelerate the physical flow of goods. But more importantly, the relevance of blockchain for autonomous delivery comes by involving the community as part of the solution."

According to Abdelhady, innovations by Geeba will be the solution to the expensive last stage of local delivery in cities.

This newest innovation aims to disrupt last-mile logistics and is to cut the expenses for e-commerce companies significantly, he said.

"Geeba has already started operating from its office in Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) in Rotterdam with 10 staff of different nationalities. We have plans to increase the number of staff to 40 to evolve the blockchain of delivery and launch the commercial pilot in Rotterdam."

'Geeba' aims to facilitate the use of robots to make five million deliveries by 2022, he said.