About this episode
Opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs looking to develop a commercial UAV business. This Episode The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle industry is in its infancy and presents many business opportunities to entrepreneurs. Some opportunities are obvious, like agriculture, real estate, emergency response, and package delivery. Others have not yet been imagined. In this episode, we look at issues for UAV startups, with someone who is immersed in that process. Guest Don Toporowski is an advisor to clients of both the MaRS Discovery District , Canada’s largest centre for innovation and business acceleration, and with startups coming out of the Queen’s Innovation Connector . Don has focused on the CleanTech sector for most of his career, but he recently shifted his focus to the UAV market. He hopes to find a few entrepreneurs with very good ideas for businesses developing or using UAV technologies, and to help them build winning sales strategies, raise capital, and become successful in their endeavors. Don describes some UAV startup success stories, and the current roadblocks faced by entrepreneurs: regulatory uncertainty, funding issues, availability of business insurance, and reliability of UAVs. Contact Don at don.toporowski@gmail.com , +1 416 722-2007, on Skype at dontoporowski, o r search for Don Toporowski on LinkedIn. News The DJI Inspire One is the coolest drone I’ve ever seen DJI just released the Inspire 1 quadcopter, intended to offer more professional level features than the Phantom, yet still remain relatively easy to fly. The Inspire 1 has legs that fold to allow an unobstructed view, a ground-facing camera for stabilization when there is no GPS signal, and a 4K video camera. Price is set at $2,800. The video of the launch event DJI Inspire launch – November 12, 2014 shows the new quadcopter. [Fast forward to 14:30.] Videos of the Week Mexico City International Airport from Above shows the airport from a different perspective. Drone tour of Tower of London poppies came to us from longtime listener Mark. It shows the armistice poppies around the Tower of London. Nearly 900,000 hand made ceramic poppies represent the fallen British soldiers from World War I. Each poppy has been sold to raise money for service charities.