Nurturing Tomorrow’s Drone Workforce – Global Autonomous Systems Conference

T3 Alaska Community Engagement Lead, Gabriel Low, participated on a panel at the Global Autonomous Systems Conference on the topic, “Tomorrow’s Autonomous Air Mobility (AAM): Nurturing Tomorrow’s Drone Workforce.” Joining him were two students, Samuel Atchak from Bethel and Natalia Ashton from Wrangell, along with partner and elder from Minto, Eliza Winfrey. The students represented T3 Alaska Summer Program drone strand, which responded to a community request from the Minto Village Council to map local areas of interest. T3 Alaska students demonstrated and taught locals how to fly drones, used the drones for mapping the requested areas, and then developed interactive and printed maps utilizing RTK4 drones and Arc GIS modeling software. The students returned and presented their deliverables to the Minto Village Council in July.

This mapping effort has fostered deeper conversations about community energy planning and projects in Minto, and has strengthened partnerships between our university’s research and workforce development programs. These collaborations create opportunities for meaningful engagement in community energy planning.

This community partnership and training opportunity for the student summer program was made possible through support from the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Alaska Regional Collaboration for Technology Innovation and Commercialization (ARCTIC) program (Award #N00014-22-1-2049), building capacity in Alaska through community and industry partnerships and is partnered with the Alaska Teaching Through Technology Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The ARCTIC and T3 Alaska programs are partnered on piloting and developing community innovation hubs and networks in Alaska.

Photo Caption: T3 Alaska team presence at the Global Autonomous Systems Conference: Gabe Low (UAF T3 Community Engagement Lead), Eliza Winfrey (Minto Elder & T3 Elder Liaison), Samuel Atchak (Bethel T3 Student), Natialia Ashton (Wrangle T3 Student), and Dayne Broderson (UAF ACEP). photo by Douglas Isaacson of Minto Development Corporation

Photo credit:
Doug Isaacson, Minto Development Corp