Harry Howe
CEO & Co-Founder
Q.For readers who are potentially unfamiliar with dronestream.app, how would you describe the company in one, short, sentence?
A.Dronestream is a software platform that allows organizations to access and view data from a drone in real-time, such as the video feed, location, communication, battery life and much more.
Q.The UAS industry is a relatively young and growing industry with many companies finding varied degrees of success, What is it that separates you from others in the market?
A.Dronestream gives organizations a live window to the drone pilots remote controller; it does this with mobile apps and a web browser based site, enabling viewers to tap into the feed from anywhere in the world via any device – something which has not been done with such ease within the industry to-date.
Q.As some users may come from small operations that are unaccustomed to using technology in their businesses, how do you feel about the technological proficiency level required to use dronestream.app? Do you believe the software is easy enough for anyone to learn or does it require sufficient education/training to use?
A.We built Dronestream to be intuitive so users can start using within 15 seconds of downloading the app (that’s right, 15 seconds and you can be broadcasting to your team while continuing your flight). Viewers will only need to download the app, and quickly set up an account to receive push notifications when their drone pilot is in the air!
Q.Kids in school are getting more advanced in their thinking. How would you recommend they use dronestream.app?
A.Great question – Imagine how interactive this could be in the classroom, a drone could be flown over building, volcano, lake, historical landmark and the children could communicate with the pilot via our app to gain a closer look at certain aspects that can be visualised from the air, meanwhile the teacher provides and informative walkthrough.
Q.We are trying to encourage students to learn more about STEM and Best Events Productions is even creating a Drone Hackathon in March 2020 to encourage innovative thinking when it comes to countering drones. What are the most important skills and technologies to know in order to work with a company like dronestream.app?
A.If you wish to be a hands on creator, coding is key, although if coding isn’t your skillset (like me) then a knowledge of aerospace is key, and a mindset that allows you to look at problems/pain points within the industry and come up with solutions – it’s important to remember that you are solving a problem, whether it’s for the consumer or an organization, people will pay good money for you to make their lives easier and efficient!
Q.While our readers are worldwide, we’re based in Malaysia which is very young in the UAV scene. We’ve heard of slight controversy when it comes to the FAA regulations in the industry. Do you feel that the current regulations are too stringent or not harsh enough? Do you believe that the requirement for a pilot’s license with manned flight hours is reasonable for commercial UAV purposes or unnecessary?
A.Regulation is indeed holding the industry back, but for good reason as drones can be dangerous for manned aviation (although globally there has been no reported fatalities due to an aircraft colliding with a drone). The developing world (where regulation is limited) drone companies have been able to stretch their wings and fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight (perfect example would be ZipLine). If investment continues to flow for the industry, then we can continue to jump through the regulatory hoops until we satisfy the needs of governments and the companies that will benefit from flying machines. A manned pilots license is overkill for drone flights, although enables a great knowledge base for airspace which should be provided to all drone operators, whether flying commercially or for fun.
Your perspectives on UAS in the next years
I think we are currently in the most challenging part of the industry’s lifecycle, and its only going to get harder. That said, when we break through the regulatory, battery longevity, industry use-case challenges, we will see something that will change how the world flows logistically, with data retrieval and environmentally; similar to the way smartphones have completely changed… well everything!
What do you think will be the biggest challenges
Industry buy-in – the ‘build it and they will come’ strategy will not work in this industry (at least not as much as we would like), as there has been so much negative press on drones that major work will need to be done to win big companies over to the beneficial use-cases.
The other challenges will mainly be regulation and battery longevity.
A comprising UAV-related punch line
Drones will eventually be connected to almost every aspect of our life, let’s find ways they can help society today!
Harry Howe, CEO & Co-Founder of Dronestream
From a career in the pharmaceutical industry Harry became obsessed with replacing cumbersome processes with simple software solutions that enabled organizations to work more efficiently, save time and remove frustration. He brought this skillset over to the Drone Industry (which is where his die-hard passions were from flying in his spare time for the film and media industry). From here, he set out to create a software platform that the industry was desperately missing: Dronestream, a way for organizations to obtain real-time data from their drone pilot, anywhere in the world.
