In the first of a series of interviews with key figures involved in the success of Drone World Expo, we start out with the Event Director herself, Joelle Coretti.
Joelle has been with JD Events since 2002 and has developed and managed all marketing and media relations for JD Events’ portfolio of conferences and trade shows. Currently, Joelle is focused on audience development, strategic partnerships and conference programming for Drone World Expo and the launch of Commercial Drone Week.
Joelle is also responsible for the online presence of JD Events’ brands and has launched various web tools, mobile and social media initiatives for each event.
It seems that you are much further advanced with the programme for this year than you were at the same period last year
We are really excited for the 2017 event and we are looking forward to welcoming well over 3,000 attendees to San Jose in October. Drone World Expo is six weeks earlier this year and we are working hard on developing an outstanding program. We have two years’ worth of history, know the industry well, have partnered with experts in the field and have a wonderful following of commercial end users from across the country and around the world. The trade show and conference will be held October 3-4 at the San Jose Convention Center. We feel this is a better time of year for the industry and we want to make sure that everyone has their calendars marked for our new dates.
What for you were the highlights of Drone World Expo 2…?
Our event in 2016 had over 2,700 Commercial Drone professionals and our exhibitors were thrilled with the quality of end users, which we have been told is far superior to other events. Our keynote panels are unique. We do not have just one person speak about their company; we bring together leaders in government and industry to delve into important issues and make visionary predictions for the future. For the 2017 event we welcome several new advisory board members who represent different industries to help us attract other segments of the market. Biren Gandhi, Cisco; Anil Nanduri, Intel; Andrew Patton, Project Wing/X; Ingo Piroth, IBM; Kathleen “Kat” Swain, AOPA – Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and Hector Ubiñas, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) are all bringing new perspectives to our event.
You are holding this year’s event in San Jose again. You seem to like Silicon Valley …?
San Jose is the Capital of Silicon Valley which is the hub for innovation and we are the only major commercial drone event based in this market. We are excited to announce the launch of Commercial Drone Week during which we’ll help develop and showcase relevant events happening around Drone World Expo, giving our exhibitors and attendees even more reasons and opportunities to conduct business, network, learn, hold sales meetings, etc., while they are in the area. Last year San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo recognized Drone World Expo while we were in town and we look forward to working with his office again this year.
Are there any new features for this year’s show that you can reveal at this stage…?
We already have confirmed speakers from Ford, UPS, FAA, NASA, San Diego Gas & Electric, Guy Carpenter (a division of Marsh & McLennan), DPR Construction, NOAA and Cisco among many others. Our full conference program will be announced later this spring. For 2017, we are again expanding our content to include in-depth pre-conference workshops. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will be debuting a full-day “sUAS for Inspections” program and MicaSense will be covering “Sensors and Analytics for Precision Agriculture.” We will once again be offering the MAPPS geospatial conference. The Tech Talk Theaters and the Geospatial Pavilion, which were extremely well received, will be featured on the show floor along with over 100 exhibiting companies. We will be bringing back the IDEA Competition with AIAA where 3 winners get to present their winning drone innovation ideas. Abstracts are due by the deadline of June 28th. And we’re partnering with the Commercial Drone Alliance on many initiatives, including an awards program that will be announced this year.
What makes Drone World Expo unique?
Drone World Expo is the only commercial drone event held in San Jose, drawing a vast, global audience of end users to the Capital of Silicon Valley. We have an extraordinary and very active advisory board being led by Gretchen West, who is one of the most dynamic women in the industry. Our focus on commercial end users helps us to bring in an extremely qualified, unduplicated audience. We continue to invest in this industry where end-users can attend at no charge and take advantage of world-class education, technology on display and the sharing of best practices across vertical markets. We have a long term vision for this event and are excited to delve into not only the state of the drone industry but the future of IoT, autonomy and our connected world.