In 2017, Hurricane Maria struck in Puerto Rico. The people in this community were frustrated that help was promised but never came. So, the community came together and painted “water” and “food” on the ground as an SOS, in hope that helicopters and planes would see their message. Less than a year after the hurricane hit, Pedro Cruz attended the Call for Code Puerto Rico Hackathon in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He was intrigued by the challenge that asks developers to create sustainable solutions to help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters. The SOS messages after the Hurricane inspired Pedro to develop DroneAid, a tool that uses visual recognition to detect and count SOS icons on the ground from drone video streams overhead, and then automatically plots the emergency requests via video on a map for first responders.