In a Foreign Policy opinion piece, former U.S. Ambassador Jack Chow, who served as a special representative for HIV/AIDS under former Secretary of State Colin Powell and currently is a professor at Carnegie Mellon's Heinz College of Public Policy, examines the challenges of delivering humanitarian aid and how "[t]he technological versatility of airborne drones, the flying robots that are already transforming warfare, ... has the potential to revolutionize how humanitarian aid is delivered worldwide." He describes the work of several start-up companies looking to employ drones for such a purpose, saying "waves of aid drones might quickly deliver a peaceful 'first strike' capacity of food and medicines to disaster areas."