Based on the hurricane struking Puerto Rico in 2017, we developed a transportable disaster response system "DroneGo" featuring a drone fleet capable of delivering medical package and videoing roads. Assuming equal weight for both mission, we take the capability of carrying out the former missions as a constraint and a starting point from which reconnaissance routes are built. The feasibility of fitting packages into cargo bay 1 or 2 is tested by genetic algorithm. In scenario where drones carry packages to and unloaded back, from specification of drones and loading weight can we derive the maximum reachable distance of each drone loaded. A k-means clustering algorithm is used for partitioning destinations and deriving centroids as locations of bases.

For the second consecutive year, the Department of Economic Development and Commerce announced the allocation of $100,000 from its Special Economic Development Fund, for 60 young people to participate in the IOTeen Eco Technology and Business Education Project, aimed at training them to master skills related to the Internet of Things (IOT), robotics and entrepreneurship. "For 18 consecutive Saturdays starting in January, these young people will meet at the Engine-4 facilities. This is an excellent opportunity for Puerto Rican youth to create and shape the Smart City that the Engine-4 team has been working on for a while," said Manuel Laboy, Secretary of Economic Development and Commers. He added that the lab's facilities in Bayamón are expanding, following a contribution from the Department of Economic Development, through its Youth Development Program and the municipality of Bayamón. Meanwhile, Roberto Carlos Pagán-Santiago director of the Youth Development Program, said "over time, technology has become an essential part of young people's daily lives. Every day, this field generates more interest among students, who decide to take on a university career focused on this field."

An open-source disaster response tool that uses visual recognition and learns through artificial intelligence and cloud tools began as an idea that a self-taught developer had at IBM's Call for Code hackathon in Puerto Rico last year. IBM announced DroneAid on Oct. 2 as an open-source project through Code and Response, the company's $25 million program dedicated to the creation and deployment of open-source solutions tackling real-world problems. DroneAid uses visual recognition technology to detect and count SOS icons on the ground gleaned from drone video streams and automatically plots the emergency needs on a map for first responders. Developer Pedro Cruz had planned to use optical character recognition to detect messages, but reading different handwriting and languages complicated that approach. Instead, the tool relies on a subset of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' 500 humanitarian icons – symbols that DroneAid can learn and first responders can quickly understand.