Algeria unveils higher institute for UAV technologies

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Algerian Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Kamal Badri announced on Saturday that Algiers was launching a higher institute for the study of UAV technologies at the start of September 2023. 

The government picked the new city of Sidi Abdallah to build the institute in, with Badri noting that his ministry was now working on putting together the curriculums and programs of the institute before it is nationally launched.

"The launching of this promising project would boost the sector of precision technology, which would allow Algeria to have a foothold in the technology industry both at home and abroad," Badri explained.

The minister supervised on Friday a meeting with members of the committee in charge of establishing the institute. The parties discussed the means of developing educational and training programs in the field of UAV technology.

The ministry will work on determining the human and material capabilities, as well as the necessary resources to launch next year. The institute will also be distinguished by the fact that it will have a special law.

This comes at a time that drones are proving to be of utmost importance in modern warfare, with the Commander of the United Kingdom's Warfighting Division, Major General James Martin, saying the West no longer "assume[s] we have control of air space anymore [...] We don't assume we have air superiority or supremacy as we have done" in West Asia.

He underlined that drones becoming a big thing in aerial combat means that the West can no longer count on having air superiority in war.

The West no longer has the airspace of battlefields in a chokehold, as Martin told British news outlet The Telegraph that the widespread access to cheap UAVs, which are also readily available and relatively easy to use, nearly "democratized" the air and the usage of aerial surveillance and reconnaissance.