Stéphane Timpano is CEO of ASPIRE, the program management and business development arm of the Advanced Technology Research Council located in Abu Dhabi.

The ATRC’s mission is to build a vibrant research and development ecosystem that supports Abu Dhabi—and the broader UAE—in its transformation into a knowledge-based economy. With nearly 1,300 employees representing over 80 nationalities, the Council is also investing in the next generation of innovators through a wide range of STEM initiatives.

ASPIRE drives the Council’s programmatic efforts by crowdsourcing top global talent through international competitions and grand challenges. These challenges are designed to tackle real-world problems—everything from global hunger and maritime safety to the future of autonomous mobility—by bringing together experts from academia and industry to co-create cutting-edge solutions.

As CEO, Stéphane leads ASPIRE’s strategic direction and oversees relationships with key stakeholders and partners. He brings more than 20 years of management consulting experience, including major client engagement in the Telecom and Technology industries at Bain & Company in the entire EMEA region.

Before consulting, Stéphane worked in the media industry in Italy, gaining valuable experience at Sky Italia News Corporation and IMS (EMI Group).

He holds an MBA from SDA Bocconi in Milan, a degree in Political Sciences and a degree in Economics in France.

Recently, more than 2,500 people gathered to watch top autonomous drone racers compete for a $1 million prize pool at the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) Drone Racein Abu Dhabi. And in case you were wondering, MavLab, from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, secured victories in three out of four competitions. They clinched the AI Grand Challenge with their drone completing two laps of the 170-metre course in just 17 seconds. MavLab won the world’s first AI-only drag race, demonstrating straight-line speed and precision under intense acceleration. And in a landmark moment, MavLab’s autonomous drone defeated three top DCL champion pilots in a head-to-head AI-versus-human showdown. With precision flying, the AI-powered drone edged out its human-piloted rivals in thrilling contests. Equally impressive was TII Racing from the UAE, which triumphed in the multi-drone challenge, showcasing advanced coordination, collision avoidance, and team-based AI strategy. These same decision-making skills are vital in cargo delivery, emergency response, and next-gen aviation, where precision under pressure is non-negotiable.

In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Stéphane shares insights into ASPIRE’s mission, the rise of autonomous racing challenges, and the broader impact these competitions can have across technology, education, and industry.

Will we soon be able to talk to our drones via text?

Vic Pellicano is CEO and Founder of Avianna, a Chicago-based software company working to bridge the gap between hardware and software excellence in the robotics industry. Avianna offers a suite of products that utilize artificial intelligence to enable drones and other robots to understand human language and operate autonomously.  Their software  enhances mission execution and simplifies data analysis and reporting.  Imagine being able to command your drones or check on the status of your fleet using simple commands in English, such as “find a missing person” or “which drones are scheduled for missions today”

Vic is a successful entrepreneur in the software industry.  Prior to starting Avianna, he launch Verenia in 2012, an e-commerce software company.  After a decade of growth, Verenia was acquired by Oracle in 2022. With an interest in robotics, Vic turned his attention to making the interaction of humans and robots more seamless and intuitive.  He launched Avianna in early 2023 with the aim of helping UAS manufactures make more responsive and intelligent unmanned vehicles.

In this edition of the Drone Radio Show Podcast, Vic talks about Avianna, its suite of AI-powered solutions and how we will soon be able to communicate with our drones via text.

What does real time autonomous UAS operations look like?

Barry Alexander is Founder and CEO of Aquiline Drones, a drone manufacturing and full service UAS company based in Hartford Connecticut.  Aquiline offers full-service, UAV solutions with equipment, personnel and cloud infrastructure for a multitude of use cases. They have redefined the entire unmanned aerial vehicle landscape by developing a unified, real-time cloud with autonomous flight capabilities, edge computing and AI enabled data insights.  This includes drone manufacturing, air carrier service, autonomous UAS services, insurance, training and UAS cloud computing services. Driven by the Aquiline Cloud, a dedicated hybrid-cloud services platform, their solutions provide increased applicability across industries and environments. 

Barry brings over 25 years’ experience as an aviator and licensed aircraft technician for both airplanes and helicopters.  He has spent most of his career working as an Airline Captain for various airlines, with over 22,000 hours of logged flight time, with his last assignment flying Boeing 747 aircraft globally - mainly in support of US military operations. Barry possesses key expertise in several areas of flight operations and management working as a Flight Instructor, Chief Pilot, Director of Operations and has led other successful and non-aviation ventures in the areas of health information systems, electronic payment systems and digital media. 

In this edition of the Drone Radio Show, Barry talks about Aquiline Drones, its full service Drone stack solution and their efforts to achieve true autonomy. 

The 2022 NestGen will bring together leaders in the UAS automation sector to share experiences and technologies. In recent years, modular and autonomous drone-in-a-box systems have displayed a highly disruptive potential in increasing the quality and efficiency of aerial data, acquisition and management. However, as they are still a nascent and niche technology, there has been little emphasis on growing and supporting those that are involved in creating such systems. Navigating the rich and diverse ecosystem of the drone automation market is a daunting, but necessary, task. For all drone based businesses to encourage global collaboration in forging a platform for these businesses, Flytbase created the NextGen Summit. In this edition of the drone radio show, Achal Negi, Head of Business Development for Flytbase, talks about NestGen, what attendees will learn and how you can be a part of this monumental event. 

What's the latest in drone-in-a-box solutions? Achal Negi is head of business development for Flytbase and Curt Lary is lead engineer and CEO for Hextronics.  Flytbase is a Silicon Valley company that has build the world's first internet-of-drones platform to automate and scale drone operations.  Hextronics is an engineering and manufacturing company that designs and produces scalable autonomous drone hardware solutions in a cost-effective manner.  Both companies are leaders in their respective verticals, and they formed a partnershjip to produce a powerful low-cost autonomous drone-in-a-box solution.  In this episode of the Drone Radio Show, Achal and Curt talk about Flytbase and Hextronics, their drone-in-a-box product and software, and the future of autonomous drone operations.

What does it mean to achieve the highest level of aerial Autonomy?

Nader Elm is CEO and Founder of Exyn Technologies.  Exyn Technologies pioneers autonomous robot systems for complex, GPS-denied environments.  The company’s full-stack solution enables flexible deployment of single or multi-robots that can intelligently navigate and dynamically adapt to complex environments in real time. 

Earlier this year, the company announced that it had achieved what it considers the highest level of aerial autonomy reached within the UAS industry. Exyn drones are immune to GPS signal loss, meaning all spatial and mapping computations are done onboard.  They can fly anywhere without a remote operator.  This is a major step up from previous levels of autonomy, in which a human is required to potentially assume control, something that has prevented drones from entering spaces without ranging signals, such as underground mining locations.

Nader has spent his professional career in fast-growing technology domains, progressively moving from engineering roles to leadership of startups and strategic growth initiatives in large enterprises.  He joined as CEO of EXYN Technologies at the company’s formation in 2014.

In this edition of the Drone Radio Show, Nader talks about EXYN Technologies, it’s Level 4 autonomous drones, and how the company’s technology is successfully mapping dangerous and isolated underground locations in the mining industry, saving time and providing added safety benefits.