The State of the Drone Industry: Will Better Collaboration Unlock the Full Potential of Drones?
The commercial drone industry has seen some positive advancements over the past year and has much to celebrate. Commercial Drone Alliance founders and industry veterans Lisa Ellman and Gretchen West will kick off the Commercial UAV Expo 2024 reviewing the successes over the past year but also highlighting areas where challenges still exist. They will provide an overview of conference content that will help address these challenges and where you can get involved. To unlock the full potential of drones and develop strong market demand, the commercial drone industry needs to take collective action. Lisa and Gretchen will share their insights and provide a call to action to our community to get engaged.
Featuring Lisa Ellman and Gretchen West
Outlining the Future of the Airspace with the FAA
As the airspace continues to evolve, technology that allows drones to more easily take to the sky is similarly advancing, creating opportunities and challenges when it comes to uniting drones with traditional aviation ecosystems. The FAA is responsible for ensuring safe, efficient and secure air traffic services for approximately 50,000 crewed aircraft operating every day across the National Airspace System (NAS), so how is FAA leadership thinking about this unification? Listen in for a candid conversation with a top FAA official to discuss how they’re approaching the operationalization of the airspace as well as integrating unmanned aircraft systems into the NAS. Attendees will better understand what access to the airspace for drones looks like today, tomorrow and in the future.
Moderated by Lisa Ellman. Featuring Tim Arel.
Accelerating Commercial Viability and Market Demand
The commercial drone industry is on its way to having defined and published rules and regulations, and once in place, we will have collectively overcome a major hurdle to scaling drone operations. But what additional challenges need to be addressed to guarantee a path to real economic growth and commercial viability? How do we continue to grow market demand to witness the true scaling of this exciting industry? This panel of industry veterans and experts will offer insights on where firms should focus NOW to create greater market demand, and what considerations should be top of mind to ensure your success. Looking at topics through the different lenses of aviation, technology, and financial capital, panelists will explore where market demand truly is today, ask do we really know what our customers want and how do we make a business case for investment, address supply chain issues, competition, standardization and much more. Our industry must work together to drive solutions to accelerate commercial viability and market demand. The lessons learned from this panel will be sure to start many discussions during the Commercial UAV Expo 2024 and leave you with ideas to share with your fellow industry peers.
Moderated by Gretchen West. Panelist include Eric Brock, Jon Damush, Eric Mintz, and Ken Stewart
