InterDrone Flies South to Dallas for 2020 Conference, Expo

One of the largest annual drone-industry expos is heading south.

InterDrone recently announced a change of venue from last year’s event in Las Vegas to Dallas.

The conference takes flight Aug. 18-21 at the Hyatt Regency and will feature more than 90 panels, sessions, drone workshops, courses and keynotes spread across five distinct co-located events:

• GeoDrone – Surveying and Mapping
• AECDrone – Construction
• UAS First Responder Summit
• Inspection Drone – Energy & Infrastructure
• Drone Nexus – Business, Policy, and Imaging

Officials say InterDrone will facilitate connection with drone pilots, service providers, UAS engineers and developers, UAV manufacturers, videographers and enterprise UAV end-users.

Organizers expect more than 135 UAS vendors and providers in the expo space as well as other drone-facing organizations. Attendees may buy a comprehensive three-day pass at registration.

InterDrone has been lauded at past events for its partnership with Women and Drones. In 2020, the conference will highlight two of the organization’s newest programs. Drone pilot and economist Tulinda Larsen is leading both a new membership and jobs-board initiatives for Women and Drones.

“In doing our research we found there are 26,000 jobs available every day in the drone industry,” Larsen said in a recent interview.

“Every company that responded to our survey is looking to hire. Companies told us at InterDrone Expo 2019 that they just can’t find women applicants. We launched the Women and Drones Jobs Board to provide companies to leverage our network of more than 6,000 to find qualified candidates. In addition to jobs, we are offering resources to job seekers and companies to provide tools for balancing the gender equation.”

The program will also feature a Women in Drones Luncheon.

The FAA’s most recent Remote ID proposal is expected to draw a lot of attention from conference speakers.

Past InterDrone panelist Vic Moss, an admin for the popular Commercial sUAS Remote Pilots group and an educator with Drone U, stated in a recent expo interview that Remote ID would have a tremendous positive or negative impact on the industry, depending on the final set of rules passed.

“This NPRM is the single most important set of UAS rules that have ever been published by the FAA,” he said.

“It is critically imperative that each person who uses drones in their business, flies them for fun, or it involved in an industry that uses drones (realty, inspection, STEM Educators, surveyors, etc.) comment on this NPRM, and let the FAA, DHS (Department of Homeland Security), and the FBI know what this will do to the industry.”

The comment period for the rules proposals will end March 2.