I’ve been researching drones (UAV) market for quite a while now and it’s much bigger than I had initially thought! It’s pretty exciting area with huge potential and life saving mission on the background. It’s totally commercial business but making a lot of good in the society and helping people in numerous different ways. They can save significant amount of time, cover and scan huge lands collecting and providing information, replacing human-beings in catastrophic and dangerous areas or get into the space people would not be able to enter. They serve as eyes, ears and source of info you need! They can assist disabled people, transport goods, lift heavy packages, move fast as well as be just an education toy for your kids. As long as they are used according to the law, it’s a great help and potential to be adapted in different businesses.
Most common use cases for drones:
- Agriculture
- Defense
- Transportation
- Infrastructure
- Warehousing
- Constructions
- Emergency actions
- Journalism
- Expanding internet access
- Forestry
- Healthcare
- Security
- Weather forecasting
- Mining
- Energy
- Internet access
- Advertising
- Inventory Management
- Insurance
- Education
- Gaming and Entertaining
- and more 🙂
Since women are making their way into tech, AI, STEM, VC and other, so far men dominated industries, we can surely see some outstanding minds in drones business as well.
Sally French from The Drone Girl is doing great job running the website and being one of the most decent, up to dated source of info about what’s going on with drones. She is a world wide known drones expert, public speaker and practitioner of drones capabilities.
Amelia Dronehart– founder of Drone Harts, a worldwide group of women who fly drones & all RC copters. The community gets bigger and bigger audience and inspire a lot of young girls to get into the world of flying robots.
Women & Drones, founded by AeroVista Innovations COO Sharon Rossmark. She is a UAS Pilot, published author, international speaker and great example of successful female representative in the male dominated industry.
Women of commercial drones -Women of Commercial Drones serves as a forum to come together to discuss challenges, share achievements and collaborate on ways to help mentor professionals and younger generations of women.
Fly lie a Girl Film by director Katie McEntire Wiatt. Fly Like A Girl is more than just a film. It’s a movement of young girls and women relentlessly pursuing their passion for aviation.
Dyan Gibbens – CEO & founder of Trumbull Unmanned. She is inspiring, extremely well educated and like-minded women in the space. Dyan spoke numerous times in the White House, US Senate, and around the world on data management and cyber security for unmanned and robotic systems.
Lia Reich – amazing women doing great job as a Vice President, Marketing & Communications at PrecisionHawk.
Karen DiMeo– Innovative thought leader on the safe and effective integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems into the commercial airspace ecosystem. DroneEnthusiast, drone safety ambassador, drone research.
Gretchen West – Senior Director at Hogan Lovells US LLP, Co-Executive Director Commercial Drone Alliance. Commercial drone advocate globally, digs robotics, an entrepreneur for tech.
Apart from the above, following are a few startups I found interesting recently. No gender bias here 😉
Skydio. Skydio is a California-based drone company known for its self-flying, super simple, ultra-smart camera drone.Even 2 year old can fly Skydio R1 Self-Flying 😉
Zipline– make medical deliveries using drones technology. You can find amazing videos about what they do on their website.
Flirtey’s mission is to save lives and improve lifestyles by making delivery instant for everyone. They were the first company to conduct an FAA-approved drone delivery in the U.S., the first to perform a fully autonomous drone delivery to a home and the first to launch a commercial drone delivery service. They have worked with NASA, Johns Hopkins University, Remote Area Medical, New Zealand Land Search & Rescue, Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority, Domino’s and 7-Eleven to conduct deliveries of medicine to rural healthcare clinics, ship-to-shore deliveries of medical samples, and deliveries of retail and e-commerce items to consumer homes.
Flytrex from Israel also provide delivery services but more for all kind of businesses. In August 2017 Flytrex launched the world’s first fully operational, regulatory approved, on-demand drone delivery service in Reykjavik, Iceland, and became the leading competitor in the race to deploy a true on-demand delivery service via autonomous vehicles. Flytrex was also selected to participate in the FAA’S Drone Pilot Program, partnering with North Carolina’s Department of Transportation and taking on the challenge to establish the first drone based delivery service in the United States
PrecisionHawk, based in the US, helps businesses elevate intelligence. They offer flights and analysis, reporting and integration, drone solutions that strengthen decision-making.
MMC UAV provides drone platforms, payloads, accessories as well as customization and manufacturing services to boost the businesses of the enterprise users. Founded in 2009, MMCUAV is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D, manufacture, sales and service of industrial-grade UAV systems. MMCUAV is committed to becoming the leading brand of industrial-grade drones.
Neurala is the company behind The Neurala Brain—deep learning neural network software for smart products like cameras, robots, drones, toys and cars.
Dart Drones provides the nation’s highest quality drone training with a simple yet comprehensive model for enterprise clients, government agencies, public safety departments, and individuals.
Swift Navigation is on a mission to enable a future of autonomous vehicles to navigate and understand the world. They began as the industry’s first low-cost, high-accuracy, real-time kinematic (RTK) receiver and ended up offering affordable, highly-accurate GNSS positioning solutions for autonomous applications—RTK GPS receivers, cloud corrections network and software positioning engine.
DroneUp provides end-to-end aerial data solutions by matching your requirements with drone pilot services. Our patent-pending, in-app platform locates, qualifies & deploys single pilot or multi-pilot crews to your job for efficient, safe and reliable deliverables. Guaranteed.
Interesting resources about drones:
If you are fascinated by the drone magic and unlimited capabilities, here is 6 Empowering Actions For Women In Drones: Learn, Share And Get Inspired – written by Steven Flynn.
100 Drone Companies to watch in 2019 by UAV Coach
Women in Drones luncheon-The Women in Drones Luncheon is a special networking event created to connect women in the drone industry.
World Of Drones Congress
The first, largest, and smartest drones congress in the Asia Pacific Region! September 25-27 2019 for #WODC19 –
DroneRules is the one-stop resource for information related to the use of drones in Europe. Co-funded by the COSME Programme of the EU.
BestDroneForTheJob Which one will work for you? Read their job-specific buying guides & reviews to find out!
Women in Drones: Embracing the Value of Collaboration
My Drone Authority – Drone Industry News, Commentary, and Buying Guides.
SkyTango Blog – news form the industry.
Drone Analyst– market analysis for commercial unmanned aerial systems.
I’ll follow with a post about most active VC investors in the drone space soon as well as more startups working on the business that builds up their solutions using UAV.
