# BVLOS Operations in the Next Decade: What to Expect in 2033

- Event: NestGen ’23
- Published: March 11, 2023
- Length: 45:12
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/x9vbBHN5vGg/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## About this session

A thought leadership discussion with top CXOs in the drone industry to discuss their outlook on drone autonomy in the future.

## Transcript

**[0:09]** thank you oh we are live all right fantastic uh well welcome fantastic uh welcome to the the final panel session of NestGen 23. uh once again I'm your moderator Jason San Souci I'm Chief Architect at Juniper on manned uh it is my pleasure to introduce you to this esteemed panel of cxos uh CEOs ctOS of some of the top drone companies around the world so I am really pleasure I'm just going to go around the horn we have a very fantastic session on BB loss and drone in the Box solutions from a CEO from a cxo perspective for you today so we're very happy that you're here uh if you have questions for the panelists please use the uh section the Q a section on the right otherwise we're just gonna Dive Right In but first let me introduce each individual panelist and then we're just going to Dive Right In so first up obviously uh no particular order we have I'm just going around my screen we have the CEO of

**[1:14]** FlytBase our gracious host nitin Gupta and then we also have the CEO of hover UAV Jackie dubovic dumovich there we go I got it literally just practiced this uh we have the CTO of drone up John Vernon pleasure to have you sir and the CEO of a Lotus Aerospace Glenn Lynch everyone thank you so much for joining us today uh I am very excited about this there's a lot of Buzz generating about this particular session so now it is time and I hope you are ready let's dive into question number one so the first question so how and we're not doing this in a particular order I'll just pick you randomly I like it better that way how can companies and governments work together to create a regulatory environment that both encourages Innovation and growth and experimentation with BB loss and journal box technology but also ensures Public Safety and Security and what are some of the challenges and opportunity related to

**[2:16]** that let's you know what let's go with John oh John I think if you're speaking we can't hear you all right how about now Perfect Look at that the amazing problems of virtual conferences so uh I guess thank you for the question Jason I uh it's a it's interesting and multi-faceted kind of question that you're asking there um you know obviously I think we've talked we talk a lot about the benefits and and uh you know capabilities that that are created with Beat Boston drone in a box and um various different regulatory environments obviously are in in a very very different kind of states of of uh of moving that forward you know uh I'm sure Jackie uh has uh you know a very very different perspective than kind of what's here in the US and Glenn in Canada seeing very different kind of things there as well but I think to answer your question I think the core of this is is like we need really two things one we

**[3:20]** need industry drivers um we need people that are willing to go out and actually do the work do the Integrations uh you know there's certainly uh Pathways that have you know been to in various different states of being a established but regardless of whatever state it is you know nothing moves forward without you know driving Innovation and creating Economic Opportunity um at the end of the day all of this is about kind of risk versus reward right and and so we have to continue to push forward for innovation in the space um continue to create Economic Opportunity and then partner with Regulators to kind of not only show them why it's important but how we can do it safely um and I know that's that's a fairly super super high level answer because we don't have a ton of time but I'm sure your future questions will get into some more of those details oh absolutely um you did mention Jackie so Jackie just he mentioned your perspective what is your perspective on this question look I I like because we have more hot people with that regulatory aspect and how to obtain it I think that we need to work as a Regulators

**[4:21]** I think it needs to be a regulator driven like regulatory roadmap we have just done one here in Australia but we need to know what is their priorities you know is it airspace integration or what it may be because we need to know where they're going to spend the resources on it as well so we know when they're expecting you know to be full autonomy or they're just focusing on aam because we don't want to spend or like the clients or the people the manufacturers don't want to spend on the wrong thing as well we also need to see I'm thinking like you know especially for Australia we need to further develop like standard scenarios um so you know people already know what is that minimal acceptable level of compliance so that that we can continue to grow I think that I think that's really great and like I said we're going to dive a lot deeper into these and but I mean this is a tough question to answer uh over to you Glenn so creating an environment that encourages Innovation and experimentation I have to say you know after 40 years in in Aerospace and Aviation I don't think I've ever

**[5:23]** seen the level of cooperation I'm seeing currently I think the key challenge is uh misalignment it's we've got an industry focused on technology and a government body focused on safety and I think John and Jackie both kind of uh led to the idea of partnering with The Regulators because I think the solution here is to make sure we in fight we invite the government early invite The Regulators into our process um understand the regulations and the government concerns and then address those throughout the entire process through transparency and partnership with the regulators one thing that was brought up during um your keynote and it is it wasn't necessarily the regulations it was the bureaucracy uh what are your thoughts what were your thoughts on on this particular question related to to that during the Keynote right Jason so when we think about uh you know regulations and uh no safety all of these things um if you look at you know any of The Regulators they are always trying

**[6:27]** to do an assessment of the risk right and everybody understands that nothing comes with zero risk there is always some non-zero risk but the idea is how can we evaluate that risk and how can we ensure that it is below a certain threshold right now the you know when you think about opportunity in this phase the opportunities will be you know creating these kind of risk models can we come up with risk models where you are able to put in all kinds of data now this data could be internal external like it could be related to the type of vehicle or how it is operating uh or know what kind of parachute does it have does it have sense and avoid all of these things can feed into that model plus the environment that it is operating in no is it operating in a dense area in a sparse area or no it is operating in um hybrid condition and so on so all of these things go into some sort of a risk model and if we can build these things and come up with quantitative ways of coming up with a number and say that no this is the level of risk and work with The Regulators

**[7:29]** to come up with a threshold that okay if this computed risk is below this number then we are good to fly right so we see that is how things will probably evolve in the future like as as more and more uh look people in the industry work together we will be able to come up with these models and convince The Regulators to use these quantitative ways of evaluating risk and no future of the technology you know if we just you know go a few steps further you can imagine that you know at some point in time there will be enough Ai and other things available which will not only do a dynamic evaluation of this risk during the flight but it will also suggest or execute things in order to mitigate that risk like for example if you're operating at a certain speed and most suddenly the wind conditions change or something happens which makes it High risky more risk than what is the threshold of The Regulators now your systems might automatically adjust the speed of the vehicle or the height of the vehicle or something else in order to bring that risk risk below that threshold

**[8:30]** right so you can imagine a future where we are doing this Dynamic computation of risk and adjusting all these variables during flight in order to mitigate and keep the risk under that threshold so that that and this is something that has to be driven by the industry we cannot assume or you know think that Regulators will come up with these models or these approaches this has to be done by all of us together making our systems where we are able to take in all this data you know we have protocols we have standards of you know collecting all this data putting it into this model and then once we have all these things kind of figured out together as an industry we can go to the regulators and convince them that no this is the approach that makes sense and you can now validate whether this approach makes sense and turn it into a regulation so long term like not looking out 10 years from now you know something like that is what we see happening sorry for a long answer no no no and I'm actually going to dive a little bit deeper into this into our second question and we could and please if you have follow-up to this thing because I just have one

**[9:35]** thing to knit and sing on that look I look 100 agree with that and we were really lucky like in Australia last year we along with Andra um won a very large Grant should do exactly what you said so the next 18 months is to come up with that risk profile um not me do you know to automate that um you know to automate that investment process so hopefully that start of you know that longer journey of what we need and what you've said at the end sorry Jason go back to you oh no no worries and like I said I want this to be an open dialogue as well so uh we're not just going in any order or if if there's comment that we want to do it please I would add one other thing like it's um because we also often very you get hung up in the regulatory side of kind of what needs to get done and it's easy to do lots of these kind of you know projects to prove capabilities and talk about things that might happen at some point you know 10 20 plus years out but the other side of this that I think has to be factored in is kind of this community acceptance side of it right and you know at

**[10:37]** the end of the day a risk equation is not really a well-factored risk equation if it doesn't say what is the drivers behind why we want to do this what risk are people willing to take in in order to accommodate right because that is the reality it's like every day we get in a car it's far more risky than getting in a plane but if you ask the average person it's more scary to get in a plane than a car why is that they've just decided that that's an acceptable risk and that the convenience of getting around in a vehicle is something that they're they're willing to kind of accept and so the same scenario is here it's not just a regulatory scenario or an industry scenario it's it's kind of all three of those factors that have to come together that drive the the necessity that that create a certain amount of acceptance and then the other piece of this is what is reasonable regulatory you know constraints or rules or regulations that help ensure the measure the level of risk that we're willing to accept well let's dive a little bit into the mindset then so you brought that up that's a good point John um there seems to be a little bit of a clash between sort of the

**[11:41]** agile methodologies of technology companies I asked this in an earlier panel and I really like the answers I wanted to get your your perspective on this between agile technology companies and sort of the copper you know comparably slow moving aviation industry um how do we bridge that gap between those two worlds and two mindsets let's start with Jackie okay well what is Aviation like you know what is the a slow Aviation Group is that just The Regulators like are we all now you know all part of Aviation I'm not I try to move very fast but look how we currently work you know with with those agile tech companies and things like that you said all back we look at what you know what is the purpose of what's that concept of operations that they want to do or what is that end user want to do with that look at that level of risk which always then you know not defines out you know what are those um safety objectives or what are the technical specifications um and then we look at it you know this is what they want to do now um so we can say

**[12:46]** Yep this is what the regulator will accept now so they can move quicker just to get those runs on the board and then you know you can divide through the higher level of risk you know you're going to need these technical specifications um and but that's going to take a lot longer because a lot of the issues not just in Australia I think all around the world there is no minimal acceptable levels of Alliance for a lot of even the technical specifications or you know there are some Pathways for certification but the regulator need to have that um like you know what are they going to accept what is the standards for detect and avoid or whatever it be so we can keep moving forward I'll let everyone else talk now yeah no absolutely let's jump to Glenn I'd like to get your thoughts sir so Bridging the Gap I mean um I kind of come from that lethargic world of uh of Aviation um to me as drones get bigger and more capable the gap between crude and uncrewed airplanes start closing anyways um I think uh in the case of volatis we actually operate helicopters and fixed wings

**[13:51]** as well as drones well drones is the majority of our of our Fleet we're actually working hard to close that Gap through cross-training between the companies you know we've got people that are come from the Drone World working in traditional Aviation and traditional Aviation people migrating into the Drone world and kind of bridging that Gap that's dealing with kind of the future of the larger drones I think especially but in the smaller drones I think we also have an interesting Challenge and again you know drones have kind of come up through technology world and Aviation aviators have kind of come from that lethargic you know decades old regulatory environment and they're kind of coming together one thing that I think has separated us for a while is the difference between analog and digital right in fact drones are the Drone industry started digital whereas the aviation industry is built on a and an analog framework I think Aviation is rushing very quickly

**[14:53]** to catch up you know we're traveling across the ocean now and rather than talking on HF radios the the most important things we do now is three buttons except reject and insert that's it right so It's All Digital or it's it's getting that way I think a lot of those problems are being addressed by the UTM uh community and and companies focused on the UTM Community but I really believe fundamentally it begins with you know cross-training and educating right now and starting to see uh the industry through you know each other's eyes the Drone Community seeing it through uh conventional Aviation we need to do that because that's where the Regulators are coming from and then of course The Regulators trying to understand the Drone industry uh better as well because it's a change for everybody I completely agree um and well put uh what is your perspective there at FlytBase right so again no no we believe that both regulators and Industry need to work with each other in order to bridge the gap of course uh you know that's the given but how

**[15:55]** do you really do it and you know one thing that industry has learned is uh what you cannot measure measure you cannot improve right so we are highly data driven in everything that we do uh however if you look at the regulators and how uh no regulations are handled today it's it's very qualitative it's not very quantitative today so that is where we need to work with The Regulators understand their concerns about risk and everything and then maybe you know help them come up with quantitative ways of evaluating and assessing risk right because once you put a quantitative framework around this it becomes so much easier for everyone to comply with it and you know it is a very clear decision based framework instead of a feeling based framework right so that is where I think expertise of the industry and experience of The Regulators all that can come handy in order to design no such kind of a measurable some measurable framework which can help move everyone ahead faster all right so John you know we're coming to you to wrap this question up but very

**[16:55]** curious is your thoughts yeah so I I always I always get concerned when people use the word agile because it's so hard to know exactly what they mean um I also get worried when people think that agile products or Agile development doesn't create reliable products and I think that I think the core of it is is exactly what Glenn was saying I think he's right there's a technology uh side of this equation and there's a traditional Aviation side of this equation um and you know I could I could go and say things like well you know if we had waited for uh the Wright brothers to get it right to the level that we need to have it now we'd still not be flying right but that's not super helpful um but the reality is if if I really look at it if you think about agile as a methodology um you know there there are definitely ways and tenants that agile does actually help the industry the idea of of rapid and spirit experimentation uh to nitin's point being able to to quantify down to exactly you know how well did we do and how much do we need to improve improve uh the ability to kind of drive those things

**[17:55]** through um you know ongoing Evolution but at some point you do have to meet a certain set of milestones and that is where you know meeting in the middle uh so so to speak with in terms of regulatory constraints is exactly where we need to be you know some of the most reliable systems in the world were built with agile as the mindset right things we rely on every single day and we don't think about it um you know the the the core of this isn't you know is it slow or is it fast it's it's that it needs to be a little bit of both right we need to be able to provide the best capabilities and the best quality systems that we can and the old ways of waiting for years or five years to certify something don't necessarily support that right things are changing much faster uh look at look at cases like lidar right go go to the trade shows five years ago and look at lidar equipment and you you could barely carry it around in a truck I'm exaggerating a little but you know now now you've gotten to the point where you've got Light Art where it's at Swap sizes that you're carrying it around on a reasonable size drone you know five years from now if you

**[18:57]** forecast into the future those things will have evolved and changed as well and so there has to be this meet in the middle of not just is it agile or is it not but how can we adopt the right ways of building quality into the system building capabilities into the system regardless of the methodology that gets us to the end it's not about taking shortcuts it's about doing it the right way quickly so this this is a sorry was there another comment on that yeah Jason there was just there was a comment that I read in on one of the boards here from a distinguished guest and I think it's important you know Aviation is probably the worst industry on planet Earth for acronyms and there was a question about BV loss and just to be clear and first of all I'm really grateful um uh to the distinguished uh guest that actually brought that up because it's a bad habit we're talking about a flight that's beyond visual line of sight is what we're referring to and I think uh um I'm going to do a little bit better of making sure I avoid stepping in the acronym trap here we've got a pretty diverse uh audience and

**[20:02]** I'm I'm really grateful that point was brought up same yeah absolutely I saw that as well I saw that Danielle handled the question in there but I'm glad we brought it up here for those that didn't see that so yeah thanks Glenn for pointing that out um let's put our future looking caps on this is this is this is why you all make the big box so this is let's put let's look out 10 years 20 years I'm curious so now as this as Beyond visual line of sight and drone to box technology becomes more prevalent what is the what are the potential risks associated with because this is an automation conference this is they're like one of the main reasons we're doing this is for automation as it becomes more automated how can we ensure that there's enough oversight and accountability how do we make sure that those are still key priorities and let's I'm going to go ahead and start with knitting with this particular question okay so see uh automation is not something that is happening for the first time I mean uh everything that humans have built over last so many years everything has

**[21:04]** been automation compared to whatever existed before that right so when automobile were invented people used to maybe use horse cards or something and all that was automated by the automobile right so everywhere we have been working on reducing human effort or doing uh things in a way where we don't have to be involved in every micro decision of making something go from place a to place B but we are going at higher higher levels of decision making right and with every such leap we have to be able to Design Systems to the level of reliability and robustness so that we can let the machines take those low level decisions for us and we only care about the high level decisions and then the accountability is reduced to ensuring the reliability of the machine itself ensuring that machine actually obeys the command if you press the accelerator it actually accelerates if you press the brakes it actually stops right and if the machine is able to or you're able to design the machine to the specs and ensure that level of reliability or assurance that no if you give this

**[22:06]** instruction this is what will happen then humans can be relieved from that uh level of uh accountability Etc so humans can be left for Left accountable for the high level decision so this is something similar happening that you know more and more tasks will be left for machines to do and we will have to build our processes and certifications and regulations and everything to ensure that those machines are actually doing what they are supposed to do and reduce the level of accountability of humans to the high level tasks during our pre-meaning what well said and during our pre-meaning Jack you had an interesting um answer to this particular question and I'm hoping you've sort of remembered it so I'm going to go to you next um would love to hear your perspective I don't even remember what I said so I believe in we need it we look we need a high level of robustness like proven robustness of systems so you know if it's the you know Hardware the software the communications the you know the associated equipment um we need to know that they're reliable like at the moment like a lot of companies

**[23:08]** we see focusing on something called one-to-many so one to many is you know One Pilot or remote pilot um like doing like monitoring or meant to be piloting multiple aircraft at one time so a lot of companies start with two to four then it moves up to 50 I've seen sort of getting approved so what are you monitoring and when does that human machine interface so you know after 10 are you you're just monitoring non-conforming actions like the computer is doing everything for you so when does it actually move to autonomous so and when can that pilot then be removed so I like that's what I still don't think there is a quite known um but it's definitely at the moment in the next year or two it's how do we manage non-conformies conforming rather than piloting the aircraft that's why I liked your question it actually set up the next question but before we get there let's get the the takes from our other esteemed panelists Glenn we'd love to hear your thoughts on this question so yeah it's a familiar problem in aviation it's this certainly not new if we go

**[24:13]** back as far as uh 1995 American Airlines 965 that was the Cali Colombia uh crash that killed everybody on board because the airplane took a hard left turn and descended on the wrong side of the mountain before the crew figured out where it decided to go and told it to do something different now back in those days we're taking Pilots again out of a very analog environment and training them to uh to fly in this new you know digital cockpit right and American Airlines actually kind of took the problem to task and they put out a training program it was called taming Automation and that's literally was kind of from my perspective the the move towards learning how to manage automation uh properly because sometimes the correct level of automation is no Automation and sometimes it's completely integrated you know where we're basically doing nothing more than monitoring what the um the aircraft manned or otherwise is is actually doing um I think the Drone industry in general is ahead

**[25:18]** of the game there because largely it started very early on with automation but I don't think there's anything that we'll ever substitute for a well-trained operator pilot supported with good Sops and best practices absolutely and one of the things that came up in the earlier panel and I really appreciated it was that there's actually a Triad here it's a triangle it's it's the operators or operations there's the technology and there's your bureaucracy slash um Regulators there's that operations piece and like I said we're going to bring that up in the next question as well but before we do that John bring us home yeah so one of my favorite books is by a gentleman named Daniel Burris it's called flash foresight um and so uh it's effectively about how you can take cues from things that have happened in the past and apply them to what you might forecast in the future so normally Jason when people ask me the question what's going to happen in 10 years

**[26:19]** I'm like Heck if I know and if I guess I'm gonna be just as wrong as you are so um that's usually my answer but in this case I would say I think it's reasonable to say that within the next decade the idea of full autonomy is probably a no-go um the reality is is no matter how far we actually think we will achieve there will always need to be a human supervisor whether that's for cases like Trump the trolley experiment um or it's uh you know four cases as Jackie said of kind of just non-conformance I I think we're going to find ourselves in a scenario where we're going to reach a limit to the amount of you know lack of supervision or the decrease in supervision um you know that that said you know I think we are finding that as we get more and more reliability out of things um as we're getting the aircraft to be uh far more capable as we're getting um you know additional sensors in the network I I do feel like we're going to reach a Tipping Point where um the aircraft will be more capable

**[27:19]** than what a remote operator would be capable of doing and so some of the decision-making framework will have to shift from kind of what we can actually provide to an operator in form of kind of situational intelligence to something where the aircraft is having to make effective decisions in in the vast majority of those cases um and it's the only way where we can gain the kind of scale and capability and reliability that we ultimately need um you know whether whether or not you fly up or fly down might turn into being something that's a single procedure button press but can you even Supply an operator with enough information for them to make that decision effectively I think all of those are things as we look at kind of human factors and how we scale and how we manage the stuff that are going to be super critical um as we move forward absolutely and Jackie was actually related to human factors that your comment was on but you still totally laid out the next question perfectly as the do John so I really really appreciate that actually you all did so thank you this one's related to still looking into the future what are

**[28:21]** the effects of this scaling on the workforce that is now going to be taming the autonomy related to this massive expansion worldwide that we definitely foresee how we foresee it who knows you're absolutely correct but what are the what can we do to make sure that that that workers aren't being left behind they're they're making that transition how do we help the workforce make that transition even though we don't really know what that looks like completely yet let's start with Glenn I would have preferred you started with Jackie but that's okay um so I would say that the first thing you know looking at it from a macro standpoint we're definitely moving from a many to one or from a one to one to many to one uh environment which theoretically is going to reduce the number of workers that are required but on the flip side of that we're dramatically increasing the demand for drones so I think there's you know a growing element to that in terms of

**[29:23]** how that adapts in the in the um or how that impacts the um the workforce I think that's kind of still shaking itself out the commercial Journey will get us there one way or the other um but I think that we've got a a changing Demand on the workforce right it's a growing demand for qualified people because we have a huge demand that's that's growing now and as the regulations enable the next chapter of growth we're going to need more and more trained uh operators um it's really creating access to a new type of job which are inherently safer um and and in some cases it's going to help us uh alleviate some employee shortages in in given Industries I know as we get into autonomy in the middle mile cargo sector which is a whole different discussion But ultimately we start taking the pressure off of the uh the environment right now where we're expecting to have an aircraft a crude aircraft shortage till at least 2030. from the lattice standpoint

**[30:29]** at our company we consider training to be core because there simply aren't enough uh trained professional pilot operators out there right now and we've focused our training and also tried to create real Partnerships with some of the communities that are there like in the Indigenous communities rather than sending Pilots into the indigenous communities we're actually in training training uh indigenous Pilots to be able to uh you know to conduct the work um when we've got work in those regions and then ultimately employing them to do that doing the same thing on the defense side we're training veterans that are are coming out of a a well-trained disciplined uh environment and are looking for a second career operating these remotely piloted aircraft systems commercially and and ultimately that's where um that's where our focus is but I actually think I think again training is key we've got to continue to you know make training a core part of our industry to make sure that both we have

**[31:31]** sufficient people help people in transition but also help them develop the professional disciplines that are addressing some of our our previous topics and obviously this question has a little warm fuzzy in my heart because of the work I do with the non-profit and per your request Clan let's go to Jackie next so look I mean there's going to be some Focus still on the right pilot and Glenn went through that but it's just so many other opportunities within the Industries or what you know will they be do they need to be called pilot in the future are they you know safety monitors or system operators or maintenance is a huge one so as we move to you know we've thrown the Box sort of conference so we moved to you know flying 50 drone in the boxes at all different sites we need that high level of robustness and system reliability so you know maintainers and look at internal training um like like it's often focused on the 107 or in a straight to remote pilot's license and you learn basic Aviation and radio skills but as we move forward to

**[32:34]** Beyond visual line of sight there's different skills required um as we move to more higher like and risk complex you know we need to learn about human factors uh Safety Management systems and things like that as well so I just think we need to keep adapting to that training to what people need to know and it's not just focused on the pilots I believe that the whole wider like drone like opportunities especially in the maintaining area absolutely couldn't have said it better it's not just Pilots it's like like drill part that's a piece operations is a piece there's so much more John what are your thoughts yeah I think uh Glenn stole my thunder to a large degree so thanks a lot Glenn um but no I I would say you know certainly Glenn was 100 right like there are certainly concerns that we would displace but if you look at the scale of opportunity for this industry I mean you know the the average operator we've we forecast might be flying you know 150 200 000 drones right

**[33:34]** um and that's an insane number when we think about it even if we just kind of compare it to the general aviation Fleet and so even if I am operating in a 10-1 or 50 to 1 or whatever kind of capacity that we are the the demand is going to be there as well and so you know um you know during up in terms of you know potentially as a as a company you know our first investment is in kind of the technology and the aviation and the regulatory but our second largest investment is actually in training um and you know our our core has always been kind of people matter most because the reality is is that we're not just driving the capabilities of you know the technology in the industry but we have to have well-trained and capable uh personnel and so a a really compelling upskilling program the ability to kind of create career Pathways all of that stuff is uh is requisite for us to be able to kind of not just be successful and and not displace people from jobs but ultimately to just be successful in this industry in general um I also think that in many ways this is also a space where we've got significant

**[34:36]** amounts of kind of equity and inclusion that are being driven because the barrier of entry in many cases is significantly lower and so as we can start to bring people into the industry in a way that doesn't require you know uh huge amounts of upfront investment we can also continue to develop and train and and qualify and certify these capabilities and and build a real Pathway to people uh for people to be able to move forward and accelerate this growth wow yes amazing big big hearts big hearts um knitting uh bring us home I would love to hear your thoughts on this question yeah I I think everybody has already made some really good points just just uh one thing that you know if you're worried about grown in a box or baby laws uh no affecting uh no jobs just think about what chat GPT is going to do right AI Bots and chat GPT that is going to affect much much larger number of jobs but again you know more seriously uh no every every technology of course leads to you know elimination of some jobs but also creation of new jobs and we have seen that you know in last 20

**[35:40]** years right 20 years ago we used to have landline phones and we used to have no so many other things that do not exist today but at the same time the new jobs which are like digital marketing or AI engineer or no all kinds of no fancy things that people do today all these did not exist 20 years ago so there will always be a churn there'll always be you know uh kind of old jobs go away and new jobs with Glenn and John correctly said that we have to focus on training and upgrading skills of our people so that we can do those higher value jobs one of the one of the things that has come up several times today throughout this throughout the entire conference has been sort of public acceptance this last question is related directly to public acceptance of this technology so let's just get into it it's our last question of the day we may have time for actual questions um so how can this industry and and I'm talking about the whole partnership the operations The Regulators the the technology companies how do we come how do we

**[36:40]** address the concern about safety privacy data security when using you know drone in a box technology or or these sort of automated Technologies we've been talking about today what role should companies play in building that trust with the public let's man oh man after rock paper scissors this one I'm going to start with John okay fair enough um you know look I I I think Community engagement and uh acceptance is probably top of mind for pretty much anybody that's getting into something that needs to scale Beyond a few a few flights um you know the reality is is that if we can't drive Community acceptance we won't be able to drive you know economic impact which means all of the regulation work that we do is for nothing um and so you know top of mind is that you know we we have to prove to people not only that we can do these things safely but there is a viable need for it um you know in the case of things like package delivery for example you know we we it is it is a significantly Greener option you know we we are aren't

**[37:43]** creating economic impact in terms of getting vehicles off the road um and that isn't just a matter of removing congestion but it's removing you know pollution and and also um you know decreasing the amount of stress that that you know the average municipality needs to bear in tax burdens for things like expanding roadways right we have we have a whole bunch of of you know three-dimensional vertical space that we can actually take advantage of and giving people to see that and understand it has been really critical you know one of the most compelling ways of doing that I think is a engaging in Early Education both for the purposes of the of the prior conversation but also um building public acceptance when people see it and they see how it works and they see the safety around it it's a lot easier to understand it um you know most of what we encounter in terms of negative effects um you know of what we're hearing is is quite honestly ignorance right like they've not seen it they make assumptions about how loud it is or you know it's going to blot out the Sun or you know whatever those cases are but when you really bring it

**[38:44]** down and you bring people in you say this is what it is and the experience and they see it um and you and you go through the logic of things like hey you know even if I was flying 300 000 Drums Do you know how much space there is up there um you know I I think you can start to build compelling cases and so um that has to be a first consideration I would say of every organization you know and the more that we do as an industry to continue to drive that and so to push that forward to help to educate people you know whether it's at a municipal level or even direct Community engagement it's going to be really important I think the Art of Storytelling especially for a lot of technology and Aviation companies isn't their first uh you know uh level of experience but it is the most important thing that we can do in terms of helping people understand where we're at and we've got to get much better at it much faster Jason you're on mute

**[39:44]** wow that's there's some technology for you well and I even said I was waxing eloquently it was great um Jackie tell us a story how do we build trust look bring people along the journey I think John covered a lot of it you know from the beginning and like you know all of us as this cxos as you like to say you know use that opportunity when you're you're asked to speak to you know educate that Community um you know educate your sales team so they do the same as well when they're going out the clients from the very very beginning um it's also the responsibility like I know in Australia the department of infrastructure do manage things like you know privacy and uh you know noise and different things like that so I noticed a they've started this year is to actually put that on a website because people don't know what that privacy laws are that you know drones can be flying over that this is what they can do this is what you're expecting this is the noise sort of level so I think the it needs to come not just from us too that will be the operators but I think it needs to come from the like The Regulators or the government as well yeah sounds

**[40:47]** like a level of transparency is really required they're um Glenn what are your thoughts on this well I see we're getting late on time and you want to have a little bit of time for questions so I'll keep it I'll keep it short on this one because I think Jackie and and John have covered a great deal but to me one of the key things whether we're talking about you know Community acceptance or Community Trust and also addressing some of the tough subjects like um data security and privacy concerns and I mean that's a subject on its on its own right understanding how to address that that's um probably I'm the wrong guy to comment on that as well but I think building trust that's an important one and I believe the first thing we have to do is we have to communicate with the public we have to communicate with the stakeholders and we have to make sure that they um or that we we communicate and deliver the message that we understand the problem first of all we've got to be proactive we've got to address those concerns up front

**[41:48]** um and I think we've used the word uh transparency number of times I think we have to be transparent in our practices just not transparent with the data I completely agree completely agree uh take us home on this particular question and I think we we may have a couple questions over here I'm looking in the comments so sounds good so I think no panelists have already covered a number of no things that are very particular to drones so when it comes to drones of course the noise and this and that all those things need to be communicated and we need to bring people on board and all of those things but also when you talk about uh data privacy or data security a lot of these things are not unique to drone industry you know the data security data privacy are concerns for the banking sector or so many other industries that have been dealing with these things for last 20 plus years right and they have already built standards and they have proven that if you comply with those standards then people are willing to trust you right and those actually are

**[42:48]** effective so you know basically borrowing from those other Industries no things like gdpr or your soft to compliance or your ISO 27001 compliance and things like that so a lot of these things are already quite mature and we can borrow which can help us build that trust in terms of data privacy data security very quickly and then there are things that are unique to over industry where we will have to do a lot of groundwork absolutely um so let's see I'm just looking through a few questions let's see if there's at least one that we can pick and highlight someone um one thing actually I'm curious so uh Melissa Dupree thank you for this question is Tech maintenance training something that all companies train it's for like Regional like Regional techs or Pilots or is a separate organization like I'd like to get someone's thought like that has an opera operational knowledge maintenance is a thing how big of it is the thing now versus how big is it going to be then and do we provide that training who wants to take that one off okay it's it's it is a thing

**[43:53]** now so at the moment it's more focused on the technical specifications of an airframe like you know you actually physically you know updating and changing something on that airframe where I think it needs to move towards is also software maintenance training as well so it's really important when you start flying Beyond visual line of site you're relying on the parameters that are put into a software and who can change that like as the remote pilot you shouldn't be able to change some of those parameters because they're all based on levels of risk so I do believe there needs to be you know from the manufacturer or I don't know who is going to train this in the future it is mostly internal or through manufacturers at this stage but I think it's going to get a lot bigger as we move forward I appreciate that and I and I apologize that's all the time we have for questions but I did want to once again thank our panelists for participating in this final cxo panel here at NestGen 23. I want to give a big shout out to DJI Enterprise for being the title sponsor of this event and all sort of a lot of this Aerospace Landing Organization

**[44:56]** for being the Platinum sponsor for this event this has been amazing you guys always knocking out of the park thank you so much for having me moderate and everyone hope you got something great out of this conference and we will see you next year bye now