DARC day two

DARC, the drones and aerial robotics conference in NY continues today with great speakers and a variety of workshops and panels getting to the nitty gritty of how we work with, regulate and understand aerial robots. The sessions range from “Do androids dream of electric sheep” where Haraway and Baudrillard references abound, to the “How to build a hobby drone” sessions, to some deep diving into regulatory frameworks now and forthcoming.

My favorite things so far include the way that the protestors yesterday were brought into the conference and included in the discussion, the inclusion of philosophical, cultural and ethical perspectives on technology, and of course, the new technologies and the depth experience in the room.

The afterDARC live drone show on Friday night was great, with a keynote from Henri Seydoux from Parrot and demos from Sensefly, Team Black Sheep, Nodecopter, UC Berkeley Biomimetic Millisys Lab, the RoboBees project, Eirik Solheim from Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Sergei Lupashin from ETH Zurich and Heather Knight with Ginger from Carnegie Mellon.

Coming up today – many more sessions and workshops including my presentation on gender and hackerspaces and the final keynote from Missy Cummings. Sunday is drone hacking day.

Program: DARC It’s not being live streamed today but recordings will be published later.

Coverage: NYTimes

Selected tweets:

[@griestenberg] Fun fact: Marilyn Monroe was discovered building drones #droneconf @ NYU Law School Library instagram.com/p/fX4PQ4lX_7/

[@drunkenpredator] Things you probably shouldn’t do at a conference panel on privacy protection: set up a recording device without telling anybody.#droneconf

[@xochiadame] .@DJI_Innovations CEO Colin Guinn Demos New Phantom Drone at DARC #DroneConf [vid]tmblr.co/ZVyP2wxSSyMu #Drones #NYCtech

[@EMiller2016] Dear world, there are different kinds of drones than military drones. Put THOSE in the news.#droneconf

[@lifewinning] Just b/c you photoshop a humanitarian drone for a slide talk doesn’t mean it’ll happen or there’s funding for it –Adam Rothstein #droneconf

[@SmithGIS] Early 20th c. dilemma – can skyscrapers and planes co-exist? Stuart Banner at Past,Present,& Future skies at #DARC #droneconf

Andra Keay is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founder of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and think tanks, with a strong interest in commercializing socially positive robotics and AI.

Andra Keay is the Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, founder of Women in Robotics and is a mentor, investor and advisor to startups, accelerators and think tanks, with a strong interest in commercializing socially positive robotics and AI.