Last summer, Mine Kafon raised €177,5K in one and a half month with a successful Kickstarter Campaign. The campaign was set up to raise money for the development of a drone that detects and destroys landmines. Since its start in 2012, the Mine Kafon foundation won several different awards, among them the 2016 Future Maker Award at the Global Innovator Conference in Beijing, the Focus Forward filmmaker competition, and the Design Indaba awards in South Africa. Mine Kafon aims to create a global awareness of land mines, and wants to work towards a landmine free world.
A world without landmines
Is it possible to free the world from landmines? Mahmud and Massoud Hassani are working towards this purpose. The Afghan brothers grew up in Kabul, a place that is heavily affected by land mines. After fleeing from war in Afghanistan, they built a new life in the south of the Netherlands. Massoud studied Industrial Design studies at Eindhoven’s Design Academy and designed the first Mine Kafon as part of his graduation project: a relatively easy to make, dandelion-like ball that is moved by the wind. Just throw it in an open field, and if there is a land mine, it will explode. By now, he and his brother own the Mine Kafon foundation, based in Maastricht, where they are developing the Mine Kafon Drone.
Creating awareness
With the first Mine Kafon, Massoud showed how easy it is to design a product for removing land mines. It was all the more a way to create awareness of the worldwide problem of land mines. Mahmud, co-founder of the Mine Kafon project: “every 22 minutes, someone gets injured or even dies from a land mine. The problem is too often neglected, and there is barely technological innovation when it comes to removing landmines. People are still using old-fashioned and often dangerous ways to detect landmines.” By developing the Mine Kafon Drone, the brothers want to show that there are easier ways to remove landmines.
Mine Kafon Drone
The Mine Kafron Drone is a technologically advanced robot, that is based on their original mine kafon. “The first design was created for people who have nothing. It is a safe design that can easily be used by citizens, whereas the drone is designed to solve the problem on a greater scale.” The Kafon Drone flies above land mine areas and locates them on a 3D map, so that the land mines can be removed or destroyed by the drone. With the help of the Dutch Ministry of Defence, the company is currently testing the prototypes. The brothers expect to have the first drones to in the market within two years. The costs of a drone will probably be between €15K and €35K.
Mine Kafon Do-It-Yourself package
For people living among mine fields the drone might be a bit too expensive. Therefore, the brothers Hassani made a manual in the form of a pdf that people can use to make a safe Mine Kafon themselves. It is very easy to do this with basic materials such as wood and car wheels. They will work together with NGO’s to make the pdf available for citizens in countries highly affected by land mines. “Because people are desperate, they are trying to find their own, often very dangerous ways to get rid of land mines. With the pdf they can build a Mine Kafon that is easy and safe to use.” Want to make your own Mine Kafon? Click here to see the DIY manual.
