Ukraine’s drone spotting app

Ukraine’s drone spotting app

Author: BBC World Service March 1, 2023 Duration: 42:03

As Ukraine enters the second year of the full-scale Russian invasion, we hear about an app through which citizens can help alert defence authorities of air attacks. To help prevent future attacks, the country’s Air Defence Forces want people to use their phones to report hostile airborne objects. Simply install an app, point your handset at the object, select the category – say a drone or a missile - and press the button. It means observers on the ground can pick up objects flying too low for radar detection. Gareth speaks to one of the app’s developers, Gennadiy Suldin of the tech start up NGO Technari.

Supercomputing predicting weather in Brazil – has it worked? The clear up continues in Sao Paulo following last week’s devastating floods and landslides, which have claimed dozens of lives. But could these extreme weather events have been better predicted with supercomputers? Angelica Mari has been asking if Brazil’s supercomputers are super enough?

Spotting illegal farms in Taiwan with citizen tech With 1500 hectares of farmland lost to illegal usage each year in Taiwan, an environmental advocacy group tried to find ways of bringing this attention to the wider public. Stuck for what to do and not wanting to use conventional means like petitions, they turned to Taiwan’s volunteer technology community for inspiration. Shiroma Silva went to find out more for Digital Planet.

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Angelica Mari. Studio Manager: Giles Aspen Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

(Image: A drone approaches for an attack in Kyiv on 17 October 2022. Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)


Every week, the team at Digital Planet from the BBC World Service takes you beyond the headlines to explore how technology is reshaping lives, cultures, and economies across the globe. This isn't just a rundown of gadget releases or corporate earnings; it's a grounded conversation about the real-world impact of our digital choices. You'll hear from engineers in Nairobi, policymakers in Brussels, and coders in São Paulo, offering a genuinely international perspective that challenges the usual Silicon Valley narrative. Each episode digs into the human stories behind the innovations, examining both the promise and the peril of our connected age. We tackle questions about ethics, accessibility, and the unintended consequences of progress, making sense of complex issues with clear, thoughtful reporting. Tune in for a nuanced and curious exploration of our technological moment, where the focus is always on the people designing, using, and living with these tools every day. This podcast provides the context you need to understand not just what's new, but what it actually means.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Digital Planet
Podcast Episodes
Controlling protesters in Iran via phones [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:26
A new report shows how the authorities in Iran can track and control protestors phones. An investigation by The Intercept news organisation has found that mobile phone coverage is being switched from a healthy 5G or 4G n…
The Twitter takeover [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:49
Elon Musk completed on a 44-billion-dollar takeover of Twitter last week. He’s expressed the want to restructure the platform and create a digital ‘town square’, a potential space for free speech, growth and learning. Bu…
Chip exports and US-China relations [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:01
The Biden administration announced a monumental policy shift earlier this month, set to limit and control the exportation of artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies to China. The restrictions will block le…
5bn mobile phones to become waste in 2022 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:38
The WEEE forum estimates that of the 16 billion mobile phones in the world about 5.3bn will no longer be in use this year. Despite being packed with precious metals like gold, silver and palladium and other recyclable pa…
Internet under attack in Ukraine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:34
Ukraine has faced internet outages since missile attacks restarted on Monday -a drop of more than 20% was recorded yesterday by The Internet Observatory Netblocks. This loss of connectivity is not thought to be due to cy…
Pandemic pushes women online [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:09
In 2020 more than 40% of the world’s population was not using the internet, with many more women being unable to get online. Now a new global study into digital access in 90 countries shows that although women were dispr…
Tiny robots cure mice with deadly pneumonia [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:22
Microrobots have been created and used to treat the most common form of pneumonia that infects patients in ICU. In experiments, currently carried out in mice at the University of California San Diego, the tiny robots swa…
Gamification – does making things fun work? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 30:07
Do you track your physical activity on your phone, count your daily steps, or how many calories you’ve burnt? Perhaps you are learning a new language using an app or have performance-related leaderboards at work? All the…
Community Networks: Connecting the unconnected [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:54
The Digital Divide in Tribal Communities Across the North American continent, there is a stark difference in the availability of the internet to different communities. Tribal lands are typically remote, rural, and rugged…
Happy birthday Digital Planet! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:25
In this special 21st birthday show we’re bringing our Digital Planet community together for the first time since 2019. The team has been asking World Service listeners about their favourite bit of tech – we hear from aro…