APEX wants remotely piloted aircraft systems to really take off in southeast Alberta
At Medicine Hat College, APEX Alberta gathered industry leaders from throughout the province to put their heads together and figure out how to get remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) ever further off the ground here at home.
APEX, a partnership between Medicine Hat College, Community Futures Entre-Corp, and Alberta Innovates, hosted a free networking event for “aerospace industry stakeholders, researchers, or adjacent businesses,” according to the event description.
The sector has seen some significant growth, and is expected to see even more growth in the near future, said Tracy Stroud, Regional Innovation Coordinator.
“Our Regional Innovation Network has been around for over a decade now. But this year, we
were successful in getting additional funding from Alberta Innovates to grow this sector. And the reason we wanted to do that is that we have seen a lot of growth locally. And also the predictions for the sector are quite high,” said Stroud. “It’s a $6 billion industry globally. But Transport Canada expects it to grow by 17% in Canada, every year, over the next five years. So up until 2027.”
The technology around RPAS systems, which are more commonly known as drones, is growing quickly, said Stroud, and a lot of new applications that continue to evolve.
“RPAS goes really well with other industries such as agriculture, or oil and gas. So there’s so many sectors that are already in our region that RPAS really pairs nicely with. And so yeah, there were multiple reasons why we’re excited about this initiative,” said Stroud. “And we’re so grateful to receive funding from Alberta Innovates to now really grow this sector, which will benefit all of Alberta.”
APEX was very happy with the turnout for the June 17th event, said Stroud, both from industry and from various community leaders, such as the Mayor of Medicine Hat and representatives from Cypress County.
“It was really great to see government and elected officials there too, and wanting to know more about the industry and how industry and governments and education could collaborate, because we had our education partners there as well,” said Stroud. “It’s just really great to see all these different collisions from people of different walks of life coming together to support the sector. That is what we like to do as a regional innovation network is to increase those opportunities for network and collaboration because we know innovation happens when two sectors are coming together. That’s usually when innovation happens. So it was really exciting for us.”
Stroud estimates there were likely about 40 people in the room though it was difficult to say, as there were more heads than initially planned with the tickets via eventbrite, all converging to share their unique perspectives on the “flight plan” they were building.