For our latest Uncrewed Views podcast, Jeremiah Karpowicz, Editorial Director of Commercial UAV News, talks with Amit Ganjoo, Founder and CEO of ANRA Technologies. They discuss recent advances in conflict detection, mission management, and UTM, how to move drone technology from experimentation to operationalization, and ways to form valuable partnerships in the drone industry.
Uncrewed Views
Uncrewed Views Conversations: Amit Ganjoo, ANRA Technologies
(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Uncreed Views Podcast. My name is Jeremiah Karpowitz. I'm the editorial director for Commercial UAV News and Commercial UAV Expo. And, you know, it's a new year for us and we wanted to take a new approach to some of the podcast content that we're putting together. And for me, it was about being able to have conversations with different people in the space. There's a lot of people we've talked to, people we haven't talked to, but what does it mean to put together a, to have a conversation with some of these people in the space in a way that we can uncover some insights that you're not going to find elsewhere. So that's what we're going to be doing for these conversation formats. And I honestly can't think of a better person to kick that off than who we have right here. It's just as Amit Ganju from, who's the CEO of ANRA Technologies. So, Amit, really appreciate you jumping in. - It's good to be here, Jeremiah, and happy new year to you as well. And look forward to this chat. I've always enjoyed our brief conversation about conferences or other ways. So look forward to the dialogue today. - Well, no, that's it. That's it. I feel like we kind of stay surface level and being able to go beyond that is something I want to do. Because gosh, I mean, I got to go back. It's probably 2017, 2018 at one of the innardrones, I think we met. So I want to talk about that history. But first, I didn't even realize I was looking through your LinkedIn. I mean, you had a pretty prolific career at Erickson or their 15, 15 years plus. I just wanted to ask you, I mean, really ask you about that and how that's been foundational or what you learned there that was reflected in the foundation of the founding of ANRA. - No, it's actually an interesting question because a lot of people have resume with a bunch of companies and experiences. The only company I ever interviewed with was Erickson. The only job I've ever had is Erickson. So if someone asked me for interview advice, I'm not so sure I can give them really good interview advice because I only interviewed once. But the time at Erickson was amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was very instrumental in shaping generally my approach towards technology and leadership. I started as a software engineer, but by the time I was director of engineering, I was the principal architect. I pretty much worked from soup to nuts and everything from hardcore engineering to dealing with account managers, looking at strategic plans and stuff like that and looking at integrating large scalable and reliable systems. Not just one off building an app here or there, which is fine if there are bugs or here. How do you build reliable scalable telecommunication systems? So that experience taught me a lot of stuff, including the importance of interoperability. I always like to use this not always. I often use this analogy when I'm speaking on panels and stuff. Like if you look at telecom industry, if you go back 20 years and you picked up a cell phone in US and you went to Europe or UK or elsewhere, your cell phone officers stopped working because they weren't interoperable. There were different standards. There was DSM, there was CDMA, there was 1X. So everywhere it was different. And everyone was building these black box solutions localize. And eventually DSM-1, they were the one standard that everyone adopted. And we had 4G, LTE, 5G and now it doesn't matter. You pick up a phone and you go anywhere, your phone works because it's all interoperable. So I learned how to build systems that scale across and not making the same mistakes. And I also, Ericsson is a global company when I was there, there were 130,000 people from the globe and we were working with team members all across the globe. So working across global teams and collaborating. And those things kind of looking at technology differently and working and collaborating across global teams is a skill I think has helped me. And I use on a daily basis working in this space, whether it's with partners, regulator or our team members around the globe. - Well, and it's an essential soft skill. So that's kind of what I wanted to ask you. Like, is that something you actively kind of leaned into or looked to do because I mean, as a software engineer, I mean, that's very specific, very technical. So was it a conscious decision on your part to kind of broaden your, I wanna say broaden your horizons, but I just did. - As an individual, I have ever since I was a kid, I've always wanted a challenge, a new challenge. If someone tells me you can't do something, you can guarantee that something, I'll pick up first to do and finish. So that's just me. So if you want, my daughter says, if I want something you to do something, I'll just say you can't do it. So it's always been, I always like to stretch and do the hard thing because if I wanted to do an easy thing, I would tell you, I wouldn't have started this company. I would have done a lot of different things. This is not an easy space, especially when you work in a regulated space. So I always like to stretch myself. So things I'm good at, as engineers, we like to think about solving problems and stuff and building the coolest and the nicest solutions. But a lot of time that coolest and the nicest solutions is not what the market needs. So it was a very conscious decision for me to understand the implications how business strategy, economics impacts the solution. It's not always solution driving the other side. So that was a conscious decision and that I forced myself to be in positions. And Erickson was a great employer from that point of view. It let you move around in different roles and try different things. And I was fortunate, I had amazing mentors who kind of, I'm using this term loosely, like how do you teach someone how to swim? Just throw them in the water and they either swim or not. So I jumped into things which I had never done before, but I was fortunate enough to have mentors and friends along the way that helped me. - And were those mentors? Is that what they, I don't have to get specific, but was it a sense of them kind of throwing something at you and seeing what happens? Or was it more kind of guiding you in certain areas? I mean, I know there's no one answer to that, but you know, is there anything for that mentorship that stands out to you as kind of even a special? - Yeah, so this is actually, this is just a great question. No one has ever asked me this question. So if you ever talk to anyone working at Andra, they'll tell you, Amit is a tough boss to work with because he'll throw you into things that you don't know anything about. And I give people opportunity to fail. I don't expect everyone to succeed all the time. If you don't fail, you've never tried anything. And I was fortunate enough to have mentors who, if I told them, hey, I don't know, I know squat about this, but this is something of interest. I want to take this on a challenge. Can you give me three weeks to work on this? And I'll see what I can do. So that way my mentors had confidence and belief in me that I'll know where to draw the line. And they let me take on things I didn't have and experiment, experience fail and succeed. So that was that, and it's not like, and when I saw them having that trust and belief in me, that's what I've tried to bring into Andra right from the get-go. - No, and I, well, I imagine too. I mean, that's something you reinforce with your team is like, I'm coming at you with this challenge, with this problem that we don't really know how to solve and let's solve it, but it's not solely on you to solve it, much less if you don't solve it, you're fired. Like that's just not the setup. - No, so I like to use, I don't think it's a phrase or something, I'll tell people, hey, I'm always open, we have an open door policy, I'm always open, you come to me with this problem saying, hey, this is a problem. But if you come to me with one problem, come to me with two alternate solutions. Say, here's how we can solve the problem, and then we'll figure out if that works or not. But don't just come to me here as a problem without you having thought about it. Hey, how can we potentially solve it, so? - No, makes sense. - Well, and some of that connects to the founding of Andrew. Andrew, was that, was it 2014 or 2015? And like, and two, when you made that transition, was it about a recognition of how much there was to do in this space or what kind of, was there a moment where you said, all right, this is the path, or what did that look like? - Yeah, so actually the journey was interesting because after my Ericsson journey, I also ran a company in the telecom mobility space. And then I moved to DC area and I was, I worked with the US Department of Defense on drone and communications program. And I have aviation background as well, right? I built an, I'm a pilot, I built an experiment with the airplane that I used to fly. So when I was working in the US Department of Defense on drone and communications program, as you know, drones are relatively new in the commercial space, but they've been around in the defense arena forever. So I saw the set of challenges and the problems and the scale happening and I saw the opportunity that eventually it's going to pivot to the commercial side and we are going to have similar challenges and more challenges in the commercial space. So that's, this was like 2014-ish that I was thinking about. Then sometime in 2015, we had some ideas I had files and patterns and then I hired and interned and we built a quick and dirty prototype and we took it to a national, there was a security event in Washington, DC. So we built a prototype, took it to an event in DC, just showcased some capability and we got the coolest technology award. I was like, huh, there's something there. So that's-- - Do you have a sense of what stood out at that event? Was it that they, nobody had seen that or did it just fit a need that they all knew they had but didn't, they had a problem but didn't have a solution and here's a solution? - I think it was a combination. No one had seen that concept and it was so novel and new at that time. And when that happened, it's funny. Someone from MITRE happened to be at the event, I think too. And they said, hey, do you mind if I introduce you to the principal technologist at NASA? I'm like, sure, what for? He said, no, no, I think you need to talk to him. And I didn't think much about it. And two weeks later, I got a call from someone. He said, hey, I'm PK. I'm the principal technologist at NASA. We would like you to sign a SpaceX collaborative research agreement with us. I'm like, sure, what for? And first of all, I don't know what the hell that is. He said, the concept you showcased and what people saw there is what we are looking to research and we call it UTM. So that's how the journey started. I had incorporated by them and we signed the SpaceX collaborative research agreement with NASA and started working on UTM technically around November, December of 2015. Officially, technically, we started in spring of January of 2016, but the journey started October, November of 2015. - Wow, I mean, that just goes to show. I mean, you just never know what's gonna happen or who you're gonna run into or who you're gonna meet at these events. That is, well, I didn't realize your history went that far back with PK. That's amazing. You know, in terms of that, and in terms of the technology itself, you know, what are some of the biggest differences of where we are right now versus where we were about 10, 12 years ago? Like, I know they're not the same challenges, but how have those challenges evolved in a way that is more about, is it more about the technology now? Is it more about the people? Is it more about the processes? Like, how are you thinking about that? - I think it's evolved quite a bit because when we started this journey, we didn't know the concepts, it was just infancy. We didn't know what would work. There was just high-level concepts. We will do it this way, that way, whether it will work, what will work, will it fail? Will it not fail? But over the years, if you fast forward to today, we know the technology was. So that problem has all. And it's not like we got it right the first go around. It went through multiple iterations. Like, if you look at how NASA started, they started with TCL-1, 2, 3, 4. Technically, we are the only company that can claim to have been there in all TCLs. No one else knows. And then FAA started the research transition program with UPP-1, UPP-2, UFT-1, UFT-2, and now the Keysight. And if you look at the tech stack we had back in 2016 and how the technology, the standards, the architecture is now, it's quite different. Some of the concepts underlying concepts are the same, but it's quite different. So it has evolved. So technology has matured. Now the challenge is not, can we do this technically? The challenge is more, how does it fit into the regulatory framework and how do we scale and operationalize it? That's what's happening with Keysight and operational evaluation. - Yeah, no, I wanna dig into the Keysight piece. But I mean, that speaks to, you know, even 10 years ago, like, was there, was there that technology, unbelief? Like, was there, like, did people think we're not gonna get there or this isn't gonna work? - Oh yeah, absolutely. - Really? - Really, people thought it was a pipe train. People thought it was like a bunch of researchers doing experimentation and publishing research papers and stuff like that. That's how it started. And then slowly you started having to believe it. Even till a few years back, we had people who were naysayers and now they're finding like, no, no, we get it. It is needed, it is. So we have seen that morphing. And keep in mind when the journey started, even FAA wasn't on board back then. It was NASA driving back in 2015. FAA didn't quite come on board because that back then, FAA was all focused on crew deviation. It's all man, UTM, it's a distraction. The scale isn't going to happen for many years. We don't need to worry about it. And then FAA was taken by surprise, how quickly with DJI's of the world coming in and drones becoming affordable, reliable, and everyday thing, they were taken off guard and then they came back up and picked things around. - Yeah, no, I mean, it lines up with some of the shifts that we've seen as well now that you mentioned it. I remember in the early days of the expo, it was well, can the drone actually do that? Is it actually going to be able to make that happen? And like, there's not that kind of initial disbelief. Now it's more about, okay, but like, but what does that look like for me? How is it creating value? So it's a, I mean, it's a good progression. - Yeah, and I think what has happened is, you know, things have matured. That's what has happened. There, we have moved from innovation, experimentation to operationalization. And now the challenges we are facing is not technical challenges. It's more operational challenges. When you take a business from innovation to operationalization, it's the same set of challenges we are encountering right now. - That makes sense. You know, one of the things I wanted to ask you about is some of the, some of your mentors in the drone space or some people that have stood out to you as just being real visionaries in the space. And you already mentioned PK. So he'd probably be top of the list. - Yes, he is definitely an, I admire him. And I think everyone does. He's a well-grounded great in the drill and extremely bright in the drill. There are a lot of individuals that are self-proclaimed experts. He's not one of them. He's actually an expert. So I look up to people like that. That's an inspiration for me. And then there are other folks in the industry. I don't want to sing a lot of names. But like, like one person I really look up to or get inspired from is like Andrew. Andrew Hadley, he works with Eurocontrol. He is one of the scientists there. A very smart, very bright person who's, you just enjoy having a conversation. And there are no hidden agendas or anything like that. You just learn. Sometimes I chat, I learn. We don't talk about drones all the time. Sometimes we talk about cars. Sometimes we talk about sailing and other stuff. It's just having those conversations that actually, you come out better after the conversations than you went into it. - No, it's people like that. People like PK, the ones that aren't positioning themselves as the experts or knowing everything out there that you realize, oh, they're the ones that actually know what's happening in the series. But you know, that connects you too, what I wanted to ask you about events. Like, I can't, every time I go away. - I can't, you mentioned who inspired me. I have to say outside of the drone industry, the other key inspiration for me all through my career has been my dad, right? So my dad used to run a business, he's tired now, but he came from a lower middle-class family. He worked his way to pay through college. And then he ended up, he worked for Pfizer, then he started his own company, he was successful. And he grew everything from zero to up there. Then, you know, in business, they're ups and down. He had his ups and downs and he lost everything that he started everything all over again. Our family was victim of terrorism and all kinds of things happened, but I saw resilience and how you, if you have the willpower, what you can do with the resilience. - And so-- - And he created. - Yeah, I was gonna say, when you started, so when you said, all right, I'm gonna start my own company, you know, my own thing, did he try to talk you out of it? So I found a business son on me, like you've seen. - No, no, he did not. So to be honest, when I graduated, my undergraduate, I got a job offer. And I got one of the first job offers. And then he said, this was when my undergraduate, I didn't even have to interview, I just got a job offer because they were doing campus recruitment. And everyone was excited because I got one of the job offers. So I thought my parents would be ecstatic. So he comes out, he never visited me on college, never ever in the four years. He showed up and he took takes me out to dinner and he says, okay, great, you got a job, how much are they paying you? I said, XYZ, he said, all right, I'll give you XYZ plus 100, you come work for me. I said, absolutely not, I don't want to work for you. You know, I wouldn't say it's arrogance, it's ignorance at that time because I had seen him, he was a self-made man, I didn't want to be spoon-fed. So I said, I don't want to do something on my own. He said, okay, you have two choices. You come work for me or you go for higher studies. (laughs) Higher studies it ended up being. But now I have seen, he's been an inspiration all my life though. - Well, and I imagine too, like that. I mean, that's great to hear that he didn't try to talk you out. I mean, he had those kind of hardships, but at the same time, I imagine there's something to, I mean, enduring succeeding with that, which he obviously did. And I imagine you kind of feel the same with the ups and downs at Anra. Like there's nothing like succeeding with something of your own like that. - Yeah, and it's not, a lot of people focus. And I know it sounds cliche, that's about money and stuff. It's actually about making a difference, like how many lives have you touched? And are you solving a key problem? Like because tomorrow if I step out, I can probably find a job or do it tens of different businesses, which are a lot simpler than what I've been doing for the last nine years. But it's just a challenge. It drives me, motivates me, we're creating the future. So like 10, 20 years down the line or 30 years down the line, I can look back at it and say, you know, when that whole drone thing started, we had a small part to play in it. So that drives and motivates me. And like to your point, there are ups and downs and yes, as a company, have we gone through ups and downs? Do we still go through ups and downs? Yes, but do we come out stronger at the other end? Yes. Well, and those are the types of stories and experiences that I think that I know color a lot of the presentations and conversations that you have at events. It was about to say like, I mean, I go to, I don't go to as many events as you, but every time I go to one, I'm like, oh, I'm speaking, or like I gotta check out his session. You know, what have been some of the benefits? What does it mean to you to kind of be at these events? And what have been some of the bigger takeaways or lessons learned from even all over the world? These events? Yeah, so actually that honestly, that's a great question. And I don't think it's a very intentional thing that I go to various events and stuff. And it's and prioritizing which events and how and when. And it's the events I go to is where I think I can add value and where I think I can get value back because these opportunities are technically like two way streets because it's not just me going out there and talking. It's hearing different people talking and having those conversations over dinner in the evening and just chatting and picking brains like the kind of conversations I told you. And one of the other things is like, it honestly doesn't feel like work. And it's also when we go there because I used to work in an international environment already. It's what you realize is that there are a lot more similarities than differences in the challenges, even though the regulatory frameworks are different in different parts of the world. There are a lot more similarities than the similarities. And every event of the chance to meet some of the most brilliant minds. There are people much, much, much smarter than me at these events. And I'll just sit and chat with them. I would drink, have a cup of coffee and learn. I learn everything every time. So whether it's Europe, USA, India, anywhere. - Well, and it's just such a, I mean, there's just no other way to do it. I remember, I mean, when COVID happened in 2020, 2021, it was, all right, well, we'll never have events again. We're switching it all online. No need for any of that ever again. And it just wasn't the same. And it's just those kind of connections that, I mean, when there's a platform that figures out how to enable that same kind of connection of walking down an aisle and seeing somebody recognize or seeing somebody that spoke and you just kind of grab them and tell them how much you enjoyed that. When there's a digital platform that can replicate that, we're in trouble, but I'm not, I'm not thinking that's happening anytime soon. - The personal touch is always different. Like, you know, you live in a virtual world, but looking from an eye to eye and having a conversation with them sitting across from them, it's still very different. - No, I totally agree. So, you know, specific to your technology and your solution. You know, obviously there's a lot, there's a lot of different options out there. - No, what do you say makes mission manager different from the competition? Or maybe you could just give a little baseline around your offering. - So we as a company focus, we've been doing this since day when we call it airspace and mission management. Because a lot of people say, okay, UTM, you build UTM and stuff like that. UTM is not a thing, thing by itself. It's a concept, it's an ecosystem play. So there's a lot of different things. At the end of the day, what mission manager is, it enables enterprises to offer scaled drone operations, to manage their end-to-end drone operations, whether it's we lost, but more than likely beyond visual line of flight. And it's not a moment of thing when you're doing one or two flights. When you're doing hundreds of flights, like New York Power authorities of the New York MCA of the world, when they're managing hundreds of flights. And it's offering them an integrated solution, which integrates into their existing workflows. And also because at the end of the day, the enterprise doesn't care. They just want to fly and solve their mission. Well, how mission manager is different is, it orchestrates the whole workflows. It takes all the complexity of them having to know about the airspace, having to know about what authorizations they need, and do they have to do risk assessments. And they just plan on their flight and do it. The system does everything else, whether it's getting an automatic glance approval, whether it's deployed in Europe, and you need to get a use space. You are talking to a use space service provider and getting a use space approval. And how does it integrate into the existing workflows of the enterprise? What systems do they have? So they don't have to manage 10 different systems all of a sudden. So it orchestrates the whole workflow. And we built the system, this was not an afterthought. We built the system from ground up like that. And the system basically will tie your airspace integration and mission and fleet management into one. So it's one thing that they have to worry about. Everything happens besides the behind the scenes. There are other people who do bits and pieces, like, and I'm not trying to downplay their great systems out there, but we are yet to see someone with as comprehensive cohesive offering with the end-to-end capability. People do bits and pieces. But at the end of the day, it's not a software problem. - And is that the value prop? You mentioned some of those other solutions that are out there that are bits and pieces that I'm sure are powerful in and of themselves, but they aren't without that bigger picture. I guess their pitch, though, would be that you only need this piece. And you're coming at it from the perspective of, but there's this bigger ecosystem that you have to be part of, whether you want to or not. - Yeah, if you're doing flying one flight a day or one flight a month, yeah. You can use those systems. But if you're going to looking to scale and go where the industry is with drone operations, scaling, and us moving from small drones to EV tools, et cetera, there's a complete, it's an integrated airspace, integrated workflow management. So enterprise use cases are not just service, enterprise use cases are delivery. Like our same system actually handles delivery workflows as well. So we've helped build the nationwide delivery, medical delivery network in Scotland for national health system, right? So that's our mission manager plus our airspace or airspace management capabilities put together. Different use cases than what NYPA uses it for, for example. - Well, and that word you'd scale, like what are some of the words or terms that you use to get to kind of have those aha moments with people? I imagine scales, one of them, like does air traffic control for drones? Like, or two, like the UTM? Does that pull somebody back from thinking, oh, there's UTM and then there's USpace? Like, how do you enable those kind of aha moments? - How do I explain it to people? Like the way I use a simple analogy, I say, if you're going to like, you're upstate New York somewhere, right? Ready low? You're somewhere-- - Oh, I'm in Seattle. - Seattle, oh, you're a VSCO, okay, Seattle. So let's say you're at Seattle, Tacoma, and you want to fly to New York, you get in a plane, go to Seattle, Tacoma, and get in the airplane, and you don't have to worry about it because the guys in the control tower that are communicating with the pilots, giving them clearances and handing them off to en route controllers, and air traffic control is managing that. Give it, give or take any given time, there are around 10,000 shrewd aircraft in the sky. But when you move to the uncrewed world, there are going to be hundreds of thousands, and if not millions, so that human in the loop paradigm doesn't work. So what our system provides is, creates a digital management system, traffic management system, which is automated, and handles this behind the scenes at scale. So that is an overarching pitch of what we do. Now decompose it to the enterprise level. Enterprise is one small component of this big picture. Like they are also automated and they have to fit into this broader ecosystem. So we provide that foundation and the glue that ties it all together. - No, that makes a lot of sense. And like, does that get people reset in terms of how they can best leverage your technology? And you mentioned NIPA, I mean, I was going to ask about, who are your customers right now, and who is that prototype that's out there? - So we have customers ranging from public safety, like we have police departments that use our system. We have enterprises such as NIPA. NIPA by itself has, I think, around, if I'm not mistaken, and don't quote me, hold me to this, has around 120 drone pilots, give or take. So imagine how many flights they are doing. And so it's not one order, and they are happening all across the state of New York, right the way from Niagara, all the way into the city. NIPA runs, they're the biggest public sector utility company in the world, and they manage all their drone operations from a centralized operations center using our technology. Now, that is one. Now, a police department does not necessarily fly so many drones, they have a lot less, but they also have similar capabilities, but the scale is different. But it's automated, it gets all the approvals, it's integrated into UTM approvals or LANs approvals, and provides the ops center or DFR drone as a first responder capability, because our mission manager also integrates drone as the first responder capability, whether it's a pre-flying drone or a drone in a box, or whatever you call. >> So the support and capabilities is pretty much the same regardless of the customer, but I mean the customer is using it. >> You're using it in very different ways. >> And the integrations are different, like some enterprises have much deeper integration into their existing system. So as you can imagine, enterprises such as NIPA have tons of legacy asset management, asset tracking, authorization systems that they have to comply with for a lot of reasons. This system has to plug in there and work with those. >> Wow, okay, I hadn't even thought about that. That integration piece, like how deep or not deep it goes, like that's, I mean, that can be an entire project in and of itself. >> So, so New York Power Authority doesn't log into it. They use a single sign on to get into our services. They use their existing credentials and they use our service as if they were on their same network. >> Wow, okay, so like that kind of, I mean, you can integrate it that kind of whatever makes sense for the company. I mean, obviously to a degree. >> Yes. >> Oh, no, that's great to hear. You know, in terms of some of those capabilities, you mentioned LANs, you know, has that capability changed or evolved in a meaningful way since 2000? And how do you envision some of those capabilities specific to that kind of approval further evolving? >> Yes, it has evolved. But actually, I just thought of it as you were saying the previous one. Well, a simple way to look at it is the different set of customers, like enterprises, such as night bar, police departments or public safety. One difference that we see in terms of when we deploy is a mission driven deployment versus a process driven deployment. So that is one difference we see. And I think just those four words can help visualize what I mean by that. Now, coming to your question around the FA and LANs and stuff like that. So, LANs has evolved and morphed into, morphed over the, not I shouldn't say morphed, has evolved over the course of years. Initially, when it started, it started as a basic flight authorization in control zones, which still is, but it was very rudimentary, very basic. But over there, and FA characterized it as a USS. They call LANs as a USS. Same thing as a UTM. But it's a very simple capability. It's not UTM or USpace as you traditionally think of UTM. It's a very basic part of it. Hey, I say I'm gonna fly here and that's it. I either get approved or I don't get approved and I fly there. But over the years, even there are operating rules for LANs. It started as the very basic system, but each iteration, each year there's a new onboarding and re-order onboarding and they keep updating those operating rules and adding complexity. What are the, because it's a complex set of rules. Hey, am I going to need approval? It's not just a simple yes. Either I get an approval or not. Now, do I have approval? Is it a full-time control, airport versus control? Is there a control tower full-time or not? During what hours can I request drone flights or not? Can I request flights during swill twilight or not? So they're adding more and more rules and where you can request, when can you request? So the level of complexity keeps on increasing each year. Underline concept stays the same, but the rules that get implemented, the rule sets and the kind of rules that we are getting and the kind of conditions and stakeholders that are getting pulled into the mix, keeps increasing year after year and complexity. So but Lance by itself still is focused in and around airports only. It's not the rest of the-- - Yeah, fashion. I mean, those additional layers though, that's almost complexities that are making it a little bit more difficult. - Yeah, it's very tedious, it's getting the Lance logic, the business logic when someone creates a Lance plan and by the time the US is like us run the checks and check everything and finally get there, it's, I think it's improved increase in complexity at least 10 to 15 times over the last few years. - Jeez, well, all the more reason to get moving on part 108, but that's a whole different discussion. You know, 2024 was a year of first for you guys. What, you know, were some of the milestones last year, do you, were they driven by the tech innovations or about connections that you've made in previous years that are falling together, you know what? Anything jump out to you in terms of those milestones? - So if I had to pick the top couple in US, I would say the first one was the US shared airspace down in Texas. The first ever, not a trial, operational evaluation, the key side, what's called the key side, right? Where multiple operators actually had a business need and it came up air previous to last year at the FAA symposium where before that, we had just wrapped the UPP2 at Virginia Tech and we were sitting there debriefing about the event and we had FAA, we had Jeffrey Vincent and a bunch of FAA folks sit us in a room and say, okay, great, we have done it. What do you think we need to do next? And there's like, okay, we have proven the technology works. Now we need to find a place where there's an operational business need, not just a trial in the middle of nowhere, where there's an operational need for this solution. And long behold, Texas ended up being there because all of a sudden, not by plan, a bunch of operators were planning to launch delivery services in the same area, overlapping geography. So guess what's needed there? Share airspace deconfliction services. So that happened to air like that those discussions happened and FAA announced that we're going to do this key site stuff. And air later, we actually had an operational key site with live operations happening and with the full-blown governance structure, operational committee, technical committee, operate onboarding criteria, gates for onboarding, onboarding everything in a span of 12 months and we were operational and we are operational right now. So I think in terms of, if I had to pick, that is the number one accomplishment. That's a first, not just in US, one of the global, there's use-based regulation in Europe, but this was the first globally. - Well, and that's what I was about to say. I remember being in Amsterdam drone week last year. So that was April of 2024 and the amount of questions about what's happening in Dallas, what does that look like or just all over the place? There was so much curiosity and interest of what's going to happen there and what, how is that going to drive things forward? - So that was one. And if I then I had to pick a second one, I would pick the FAA and tap letter of LOA that we got for the strategic conflict detection service, which now currently is being used by multiple operators that use our system like New York Power Authority, Arlington PD and others for, these are all live operations. - And is that one, is that, so is that one where it's kind of come together based on the past few years of pieces, the foundation that you had in place or did something change with the technology last year that you were good? - This was all, I'm sorry, I cut you off. So finish your thought. - No, just about it, the culmination of something or really maybe something that kind of popped up. - So this was actually, I would say this was a culmination because to get an LOA, it's not just the technical capability FAA looks at. It looks at your whole organization, your business management system, your cyber security, your operations manual and the operator interfaces, your SLAs, everything in addition to the technical capability. What Keysight became was the catalyst to this because now we had an actual operators that were using the system in an operational, we had all these other pieces that we had built up over the years as we were going far, as you may know, we are undergoing EASA certification as well. We are in month 20 of our certification. We will be the first provider certified by EASA for use space rollout in Europe, hopefully in the next few months here. So we had already done a lot of that work over the last few years. So that plus the actual operations happening, it just, it couldn't have been better timed, I should say. So it was just fortunate for us that all the pieces fell into place and it happened. >> Well, I mean, it speaks to the importance of getting those pieces in place and that it's not just, all right, let's set this up and we're off and running. You know, I wanted to dig in a little bit more to the work at the Keysight though, just because there is so much curiosity about it. You know, what do you see is what's next for there or even, I mean, advice for me, what else can I be reporting on kind of takeaways out of there because there's just so much interest in what's next based on what's happened there? >> So I think what's next is it started initially in Texas and the approach that was taken is a crawl walk run. Like let's start with something simple. So instead of boiling the ocean. So if you were to look at, compare U-Space services in Europe versus UTM at US shared intersect. In Europe, there are four mandatory services plus two optional services that a service provider can provide to offer UTM services. In US, what we are doing is the strategic conflict detection service, SED service, is just a subset of one of those four core services. So we are starting in a crawl walk run. So we started because that's the bare bones that you need to get going. It's part of the flight authorization service. So we did that and now we have operations happening and guess what? We realized we have different kind of operators involved. We have delivery, regular users, and public safety. And right now the initial version says, okay, every operator comes in at the same level. It's level playing field, first come, first serve, whoever requests flies there. And we realized soon enough, hey, public safety, there's a need for prioritization because public safety law enforcement will need priority flights. So it's a concept of priority and preemption. So the standard that drives Keysight, the STM standard supports the concept of prioritization, but we didn't roll it out in the initial release. So you were asking what's next? So one of the next things we are going to roll out is the concept of prioritization. So operators with, like if there's a search and rescue or a hostage situation going on, obviously a PD flights takes precedence or delivering a burrito, right? So how do you do that? So this system, so that's one thing. And similarly, we have a bunch of parking lot items that we had. Then the next thing would be injecting constraints, like constraints in the system, the constraint management service and adding more complexity. Then next would be conformance monitoring service because right now we are just doing strategic conflict resolution, but then once people are flying to make sure they are staying in conformance. So gradually adding those additional services. So those are, that is from a technical point of view, what's happening, but from an operational point of view, now the Keysight is expanding because Keysight is not geography. It was a concept. So now that we have the framework in place, we have capability. We have the governance structure in place. I also co-chair with Zipline the operations committee and then Wing and John of chair, the co-chair, the technical committee. So we started, but now we have other parts of the country which are plugging into the same Keysight framework. So for example, we just talked about New York. New York, we have NYPA already plugged into the system. We have things happening in California. We have things happening in North Carolina. So Keysight, now you have multiple bubbles and these are not independent. They're connected. They use the same infrastructure. So these bubbles are popping up in different parts of the country. And the goal is eventually these bubbles will expand enough that it covers the whole country over the next few years. - Well, and it strikes me as something that's just really important that, that word you mentioned, framework, like there's that framework in place. Like that wasn't there 10 years ago, much less five years ago. And like that's where there's been so much discussions about what does it mean for that to come together. Like that framework, like that just feels like something that's very different and very important. - Exactly. And currently there are other like we had an event in Texas, well, at a couple of months back, the harmonized guys, good more harmonized guys. And we had 30 regulators from around the world come to witness these operations, live operations, not staged, happened because this is one of the world's worst. So they can take the lessons learned back and see how these can be implemented in their regulatory environment. - Oh, that's great to hear that there was, I remember that event, I didn't realize there were that many people there though, and that that's a framework they can be utilizing in the short term. You know, you mentioned NIPA, just to dig into them a little bit more. I mean, what they've been doing is just great. I mean, Peter is just such an important part of this industry and the success they've had. You know, what does that success mean to you? And what do you think it should tell stakeholders and similarly sized organizations about what it means to enable success with this technology? - So I think the achieving the letter of LOA for SCD was a game changer for NIPA. It shows success in their scaling their drone operations, and which requires a strong partnership with the regulator as well as technology provided like that. It also demonstrated that advanced technology and solved real world challenges because they're scaling operations and they're doing BBLOS flights and NIPA uses our mission manager platform to automate their mission planning, real time tracking, conflict detection, everything from a centralized operations center. This streamlines their operations and any medium to large scale organization that's looking to scale is going to have same or more challenges. So this is, and I'm not saying it just because we are involved, this is kind of blueprint that others would have to follow to that are looking to scale. - But that, I mean, that blueprint exists and they're showing such a difference. Like again, it's just different than somebody having to reinvent the wheel. There's something they can utilize and look to as part of their own process. - Exactly. And like you mentioned, Peter is a phenomenal person and smart understands. He's always leaning forward and trying to do and imagine doing it. Typically people say government entities don't move fast and they don't. There's a lot of bureaucracy and stuff compared to the other private utility companies, NIPA, achieving the amount of success. I know the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes that Peter has to put in to get the approval and move it. And it's amazing what he's been able to do. So kudos to him and New York Power Authority for leaning in on this. - Well, I mean, it speaks to what's possible when you do have that person that is committed that is ready to put their, I mean, frankly, the reputation on the line to make something happen. But with that, you can make something happen. Like he's showing results in a very real way. So those results though, how do you think, how do you see that being part of a foundation for NIPA specifically under part 108? Like, you know, I'm sure you hear the same thing in terms of, oh, let's wait until like part 108 is coming, we'll wait until then. But I mean, organizations like NIPA that are already up and running, they have something that's going to be able to expand that much more and better under part 108. At least that's how I'm thinking about it. I mean, how are you. - Yes. Yeah, I think what part 108 will do is what we have with NIPA in terms of what they have in terms of our, the approvals, our technology and the capabilities they already have in place much broader than what we are talking about here that we provide them. It sets up, as part 108 comes, it's hard to tell what the final rule will say, but based on the indications we have seen and heard from different sources, a lot of what's happening at Keysight, what's happening with SCD and all these things, these will in one shape or form, they are helping in form part 108. And what part 108 will do is instead of making these one off kind of things we are doing with LOAs right now, make it more streamlined and more day to day routine. So scaling to routine BV loss operations versus not just for NIPA, because NIPA is kind of already going. It will enable it for the whole industry. - Well, and it's not a case either, is it? Where, I mean, once part 108 happens that there's going to be an easy drone button and you're just up and running with this technology. I mean, even that integration piece that you mentioned with the systems, like all of that is completely independent of what it means to legally take to the sky. - Exactly, exactly. So there's a lot of, I would encourage enterprises, like there's a lot of work that needs to be done to prepare because a lot of people think I'll do it when the rule comes. There's a lot of groundwork that needs to be done to get ready for when that switch finally turns. So you can wait and then start or you can be proactive and start working in that direction. So when the switch does turn on, you're ready to go. - Well, and that groundwork can lead to real value today, cheaper, faster, safer. Like that's something that he's proven. So it's not just groundwork for this eventual theoretical future that'll happen however, then. Like this is value that he can quantify and that's just really powerful. - Yep, absolutely. - You know, some of the other recent news where you guys was about having a partnership with Future Fight Global to develop this digital backbone for advanced air mobility. You know, how important are these types of partnerships and what does it mean to you to be able to find not only the right partner, but also be the right partner for somebody? - I think, Gemma, that's honestly the key because we don't take partnerships lightly and we don't do a lot of partnerships. We are very selective in our partnership. But what we know and understand very well is that partnerships are absolutely critical to advancing any, whether it's UTM, AM, ecosystem, because there's no single organization that can follow all the challenges. There are different components. It's an ecosystem play. So the specific example you mentioned with Future Fight Global, that's more focused on AM, that's more future, that's not now. Remember I talked about innovation, experimentation, operationalization, AM is still an innovation experimentation phase, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done, and these partnerships allow us to combine the expertise, aligned strategies and move faster towards the end objective that benefits the whole industry. The other thing is it helps us build the relationships because at the end of the day, you want to work with partners that are being transparent, reliable, and then you can, there's one thing doing it for the sake of a press release. There's another thing doing it for a sustainable business model, and a partnership in this case is a two-way street. Like, so that's why it helps us when the revenue is not there, start working on things and concepts together. So when, again, get ready in advance versus waiting, same kind of concept here too. >> And I mean, partnerships, I think, are just such an essential thing. I mean, really in any industry, but especially this one where there's so much still being defined. You know, in partnerships that you've either been part of or seen in the space that haven't worked out, like, is it because one partner isn't able to bring what they promised or there's different expectations? Like, when do those sort of things go wrong and what does it look like to better set expectations as part of a partnership? >> I can't comment on others' partnership, but just as an observer looking from outside in the kind of partnerships that I have seen not work out or fail is when it's a one-sided thing. It's not a two-way street. And some of the partnerships are partnerships purely on paper. They are not really partnerships. They are just basically a press release, in a sense, it's a piece of paper. It might be to create a buzz for fundraising or for something like that, but there are very few partnerships that actually, I shouldn't say very few, there are partnerships that actually have charted the course that they're going to take. >> Well, and I think it goes back to relationships, too, and why, I mean, the importance of making those sorts of connections because if there's a relationship between, I mean, two individuals or however many that is the foundation for that partnership, it's just very different than, as you said, something that is written up as a press release and let's spread the word on social media. >> Yeah, yeah, I agree. >> You mentioned, too, like that advanced future flight global. I mean, that's in the future. So what does it mean to you to be able to have? I think you're one of the few people that has your feet one foot in the present and one in the future. And like, what does it look like to balance that? Because I imagine that both of those sides are pulling you in a big way. Like, the business needs of the present, but then the potential of the future. That's not easy. >> Yeah, you have to find a balance. To me, having one foot in present and future means, you have to strike a balance between solving today's challenge and building towards the future. Because if you just stay focused on solving today's challenge, you'll miss the boat on future. It's about being grounded in the realities of what the industry and our customers need today while maintaining a forward vision and anticipating what's coming next. Like I mentioned, AM is future. It's not now. Are we going to focus 100% of our effort on AM? No, but are we going to focus some of our effort on AM? Yes, because that way, just like we did in the small drone space, we focused on all these innovation experimentation, knowing that there wasn't revenue quite there yet. And now that is commercializing, whereas the other one, so it's just being grounded and having, understanding what the needs are, like working with customers like NIPA and then working on partnerships like future flex. >> So, and how do you, you know, what is your vision for that, for that AM future? Like it's not a case of by 2030, you're going to have X amount of drones in the air. I imagine, but like, what does that, you know, what does it mean to see, put the pieces in place for that vision, but then also have some parameters around seeing if we realized? >> I honestly think it's, like you said, scale is going to take a while. And what I believe is, it's going to be a lot of uncrewed cargo movement versus passengers in what we will see as advanced air mobility or urban air mobility in the near to mid-term and long term, because yeah, we will have some operational AM flights in the near to mid-term, but they are to claim a victory, less we do it. And more exotic one-off novelty kind of things versus day-to-day routine operations, because there are a lot of aspects ranging from aircraft and financial viability that still, financial models that still need to be work on. So we see a gradual process, start with small to medium cargo, then eventually passengers down the line. >> No, that makes a lot of sense, because yeah, it's those in kind of short distances too, like whether that's, I don't know, Seattle to Tacoma or New York to Albany, like what does it look like to set up a cargo, drone cargo transport from there? And if we can, if that can be a baseline, like do you think that could be the then the framework for something that scales up and beyond? >> Yeah, I think so. I think so. So think of moving a few hundred pounds of cargo from one place to another versus burrito or a sandwich or a pizza. >> Makes sense. We've seen some not great headlines in the drone industry the past month or so, and it was just striking to me because the community endeavors that you're doing as part of the ANRA huddles, I think, are a great way to better highlight what's the good things that are happening with the technology in the space. Can you talk a little bit about some of the conversations you've had there and what it means to develop this, not only the sense of community, but also enable a more positive public perception of what we're trying to do here. >> Yeah, so one of the reasons we started Huddle is not we don't make money, we don't take sponsorships for it, it's free for everyone. One of the reasons we did it, because you remember I told you, I cherish relationships and conversations when I go to these events and we used to have these dinner side conversations and I always heard people frustrated. There are so many webinars, panels and stuff like that, they're sponsored, everyone marketing their wares and stuff. There's no, you don't really get the true answers, the true answers you get when you sit for a dinner and have a drink and browse the table and stuff like that. So we didn't like, how would we create like an informal fireside chat kind of thing where there is no preparation? We don't prepare any questions. It's people come in, if they're willing to answer whatever questions get asked, if they don't want answered, they can say it, but there's no preparation needed, no one has to prepare a slide, no one is presenting their company. We don't even introduce, give bios of the speakers, we just say, and just conversation. And ask the tough questions and have those candidate conversation, what do we think exists, what is not working and have no, in a sense, there's no moderation, no filtration. And what feedback we have received is, people appreciate that, giving a forum like without any agendas, right? For example, I'm going to be moderating a session and I don't have to mod it. I'm not even speaking. And I have not even, everyone else is speaking. But it's a forum where everyone, and I think people appreciate it because there's so much buzz hype and people get confused. What is real? Just like Keysight, there's so much buzz hype and people are trying to, what is really happening there, right? So having those kind of conversations, so that has been very useful and asking tough questions, have we solved the problem for UTM? No, we haven't, right? So there are still things to solve, have we, our AM flights happening tomorrow? Yeah, so those kind of discussions. So it's been, and every time I go and many of the people that join these harrowless speakers, I know some of them, but every time we hear the conversations, because the way the conversations go and the discussions go, we'd never discuss those topics, those topics. So it's been very interesting from that point of view. Well, and one thing I've noticed too is that, I mean, hard questions are hard, but at the same time, especially people in this space, it's not that they don't want to answer it, it's just about being able to have the right place to discuss it, to not turn that into something that's confrontational, but educational. And I mean, there's some nuance to that, but I think there's a need for it. Yeah, and we hope people get value in it because I don't think we are solving all the problems, but we are hopefully educating people now because what I realized, a lot of people are thinking those things, but they're not able to ask those questions or get answers to those questions. And this way we tell them, hey, how do you monetize UTM? Has everyone, does someone have a blueprint to monetize UTM? No, there's no one blueprint. Like, so we get those kind of answers. Well, and that's part of it too, is like, just tell me the answer is like, well, that's not that simple. Well, no, I want to let you go, don't take up too much of your time, but just to close out, I got some rapid fire questions for you, are you ready? Sure, yes. All right, what are you binge watching right now? Blue-collar TV show. Blue-collar, is that Netflix? It was originally on USA, is that about lawyers? Yeah, no, this is about the guy who's a con artist working with FBI. Ah, okay, all right, I'll have to. Please, white-collar, sorry, white-collar. No, okay, that makes way. That makes way. White-collar, like that. Complete this sentence. A year from now, we're going to be talking about operationalization of drone operations and scale. What are you reading right now on it? Good to grade by Jim Collins. Any good? I haven't finished it, but it is. Okay, and this is a good one for you. Favorite place to travel? You've been to probably, what, over 100 countries, 200 countries at this point, where do you love the most? I was born in the mountains in the Himalayas, so that's the place where I am most at peace, and that's a place where I like to go. Wow, like Nepal? No, it's a place in north of India called Kashmir. That's where I was born, up in the mountains, so that's where. Wow, that is awesome. Anybody wants to learn more? Our best way to follow up with you is out on LinkedIn. Is that on your site? Anra Huddles, what's the best way? Yeah, our website obviously has a lot of good information. If you want to reach out to me, LinkedIn is the best way to connect, and then we are on Huddles and reachable, and if you see me at an event, come and say hello. I'm happy to chat. Always enjoy conversation. And last question for you. What's one question you wish your kids ask you? What's something you struggled with at my age, and how did you handle it? Oof, that's a good one. If my seven-year-old asked me that, I'd have a lot to tell him. So I hope maybe he'll listen to this. Excellent, well, I'm gonna really appreciate you taking the time, and we will see you soon at an next event, more of the next events. Sounds great, Jeremiah, thank you so much.