Charles Acknin is Co-Founder and CEO of Skyways. Skyways is building unmanned aircraft systems designed to revolutionize autonomous cargo transportation. Unlike many competitors still in development, Skyways’ aircraft are operational today — carrying meaningful payloads over significant distances for both military and commercial customers. Based in Austin, Skyways is now shifting toward mass production of its autonomous aircraft, building confidence through real-world cargo missions that could ultimately enable future passenger applications.
At Skyways, Charles leads the company’s strategic vision and oversees operations, product development, and growth initiatives in autonomous aviation.
Prior to Skyways, Charles co-founded and served as CEO of Elixir Labs. Before that, he was a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he worked on the company’s search engine for nearly five years and spent a year advancing Google’s mission of universal accessibility.
Earlier in his career, Charles held engineering roles at Oracle, Cosworld-Asia in Shanghai, and Amadeus. He also participated in Google Summer of Code, contributing to the open-source version control system Subversion.
Charles holds a Master of Science in Software Engineering from Oxford Brookes University and a Master of Science in Computer Science from SUPINFO.
In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Charles shares how Skyways is turning autonomous cargo drones from experimental technology into dependable, scalable logistics systems.
Logan Harris is CEO, President, and Founder of Spotter Global—a company specializing in compact radar and drone detection technologies.
Spotter Global imagines, designs, manufactures, and coordinates the software development of compact surveillance radars, Remote Drone ID, NetworkedIO command and control, and its Integrated Management Center.
The company was originally founded to meet the needs of U.S. Special Forces, who required a very small, wide-area radar to protect small units conducting Village Stability Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. From that need, the first Compact Surveillance Radar—the M600—was developed to protect warfighters operating in austere environments.
In 2013, the attack on the Metcalf substation in California highlighted the need to detect threats far beyond the fence line. In response, Spotter introduced its first Compact Security Radar, the C40. Since then, the company has expanded its commercial off-the-shelf offerings to include 17 radar models covering areas from one acre to more than 380 acres, serving markets well beyond critical infrastructure—and far beyond North America.
Logan is widely recognized as the inventor of the compact surveillance radar category. With deep expertise in RF engineering and digital signal processing, he launched SpotterRF in 2009 to help prevent harm to critical infrastructure and protect warfighters.
Previously, Logan served as CTO at Wavetronix and as CTO and co-founder of ImSAR, the creator of NanoSAR. His engineering background also includes roles at IBM, TRW, Sensar Larson Davis, and Vantage.
Logan holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Brigham Young University. Known for his innovation and leadership, he has positioned Spotter Global as a trusted radar provider across government and commercial sectors.
In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Logan talks about the growing reality of drone threats, how Spotter Global is using advanced detection and Remote ID technology to protect critical infrastructure and large public events, and what the future of airspace security looks like as agencies, regulations, and technologies continue to evolve.