Claudia Bacco looks ahead to GUTMA’s upcoming event

On the 4-5th of November, less than two weeks away, the Harmonized Skies event will take place in Zurich, Switzerland. It will be the first time I’ve joined this event and I’m really looking forward to understanding more about the current areas of focus for the members of this organisation. Will it be the same topics we’ve been discussing over the past few years – BVLOS, U-Space/airspace integration, communications or will there be new topics? Or at least progress to report in the ongoing topics.

There are two full days with the afternoon of the second day being hosted at the Innovation Park Zurich (IPZ). In addition to presentations there will be an opportunity to experience Switzerland’s drone operations live, engage with drone manufacturers, and explore the latest developments within the Zurich U-Space implementation.

We will have the opportunity to walk around the park and discover a variety of companies and research initiatives. There will be exhibitions and showcases from selected Swiss drone companies, including Avientus, Aithon, CORD ETHZ, Dufour, Empa, and ZEPHYR, presenting their latest technologies and innovations. I’m definitely looking forward to this part of the conference.

During the course of the presentations and panel discussions, key topics such as BVLOS, U-Space and airspace integration are discussed. The ongoing topics mentioned above. But there’s also a focus on building the drone economy. This is such an important topic, especially with UTM industry consolidation appearing to start with the recent closure of Altitude Angel. Industry consolidation is a normal occurrence when new markets come to commercialisation, but the challenge that still seems to be outstanding is how big is the actual drone economy and how many companies can it support?

I recently interviewed GUTMA’s co-presidents for an article in the upcoming issue of our magazine, to be live digitally on 4 November. It was an interesting conversation that also considered the topic of harmonising the skies. We discussed the importance of achieving scalable BVLOS and the role that telecoms can play in this success. The topic of telecoms is also something to be discussed during this event.

Let’s connect during the time together in Zurich.