OCTOBER 16, 2023: Brightly coloured animals, fish and birds walked, swam and flew across Manhattan’s night time skyline as a thousand drones were used to draw attention to the climate crisis.
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The light show above New York city took place as world leaders gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.
The International Monetary Fund recently reported that the governments those leaders represent spent $7 trillion last year alone on subsidies for fossil fuels.
A climate change march is also planned for Sunday, ahead of the UN’s meetings.
Echodyne radar venture flies higher with $135M funding round led by Bill Gates and Baillie Gifford
June 13, 2022: Echodyne, the radar platform company backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, is announcing its biggest influx of funding to date: a $135 million round co-led by Gates and Baillie Gifford, a high-profile investment management firm based in Scotland.
( https://www.echodyne.com)
Other investors include Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group and Vulcan Capital, as well as Northrop Grumman, NEA and Vanedge Capital. Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg said the newly announced round brings total investment to $195 million, which makes the trend line for the eight-year-old company’s fundraising efforts look like a hockey stick.
“It’s the hockey stick on the raise, and we hope it’s the hockey stick on the growth of the company,” Frankenberg told GeekWire.
Echodyne is one of several Gates-backed ventures that make use of metamaterials — a type of electronic array that makes it possible to “steer” a flat-panel antenna without moving parts. Frankenberg’s company focuses on compact radar systems that can track drones and other aircraft, or can be installed on drones or autonomous vehicles.
India Can Become A Global Drone Hub By 2030: Jyotiraditya Scindia
The government will continue to enable drone adoption by easing regulations and through drone programmes such as Drone Shakti and Kisan Drones, Scindia said
Drones are expected to be significant creators of employment and economic growth due to their reach, versatility, and ease of use, said NITI Aayog Vice Chairperson Suman Bery
The central government has already carried out a series of reforms to make India a global drone hub by 2030
Table 1: Dominant drone use cases across India
Speaking on CNN’s ‘The Lead’, Gates raised strong support for using drones as a means of delivery.
CLICK HERE May 22, 2017: Echodyne has announced raising $29 million in a Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates. Other investors in the round include Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen via Allen’s Vulcan Capital, Lux Capital, Madrona Venture Group, and The Kresge Foundation. The startup said the funding will be used to scale the production of its radar system, called Metamaterial Electronically Scanning Array (MESA). According to Echodyne, many of the sensors that are used in drones and autonomous vehicle prototypes such as LiDAR are “fundamentally flawed” in that they have low-resolution imaging capabilities and limited range, and can be adversely affected by environmental conditions such as the weather. The startup’s military-style radar system MESA, on the other hand, can not only withstand rough environmental conditions, but is also small and light enough — the size of an Amazon Kindle — to be mounted on commercial drones, Echodyne said. ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/drone-delivery-supply-chains/ ) Related Article: For now, Echodyne is focusing on counter-drone applications — which are coming into the spotlight in part due to the use of drones in the war between Russia and Ukraine. “Now we have to worry about $1,000 drones, and that autonomy brings asymmetry to the problem,” Driscoll said. “You can’t defend against $1,000 drones that can be everywhere with a $100 million radar system.” NASA put Echodyne’s built-for-drones radar system to the test last year in an exercise that simulated a gas pipeline inspection mission using an autonomous fixed-wing drone. Source: The New York Times, Facebook, Euronews, Instagram, Geekwire, Inc42, World Economic Forum, Observer Research Foundation Also Read:WEF: Autonomous drone networks are a faster route to sustainable supply chains
