Meet the 2019 Women to Watch in UAS
There are so many rising stars in the drone industry this year, given rapid developments in new drone technology, expansion of delivery and more.
But if we’re narrowing it down, there are a few standout stars, as recognized by the 2019 Women to Watch in UAS awards.
The five 2019 Women to Watch in UAS finalists were selected by Women and Drones, an online drone community, and announced earlier this year at the Interdrone Conference in Las Vegas.
This year’s nomination process resulted in 471 entries from 8 countries, and the judging panel included Chris Korody of DroneBusiness.center, Helena Samsioe of GLOBHE, Jennifer Pidgen of Sundance Media Group, Cynthia Huang of DJI, Brooke Tapsall or Drone-Alert and Wendy Erikson of Women And Drones.
Here are the 2019 Women to Watch in UAS winners:
Humanitarian Honoree – Amrita Lal of Fiji
Lal serves as the Regional Coordinator at South Pacific Fly Labs. Among her drone work includes working last year with the Fiji Red Cross in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Keni to use drones for disaster risk
assessment and response operations.
Innovation Honoree – Evangeline Corcoran of Australia
As a Quantitative Ecologist, Corcoran is researching ways to detect and create population models for wildlife using drones, thermal imaging and machine learning.
Education Honoree – Meghan Salter of the U.S.A.
Salter is a West Virginia public school teacher and FAA Certified Remote Pilot who has been incorporating drone technology into her
curriculum for the past four years. As a teacher in one of the most impoverished and underrepresented cultural regions, Salter said she hopes to inspire the next generation of innovation and “show my students that
they can break the cycle of poverty through education.”
Entrepreneurial Honoree – Hitomi Uematsu of Singapore
Uematsu is the co-founder of SKYMAGIC, a drone swarming technology company in 2017 that puts on drone light shows, such as most recently entertaining more than a million spectators at the Zurich Festival in Switzerland.
Leadership Honoree – Dawn Zoldi of the U.S.A.
Zoldi is Associate General Counsel, Business Matters Attorney for the United States Air Force Academy, Secretary of the Air Force General Counsel.