We don’t just plan to talk about the Cloud at TechCrunch Disrupt London in two weeks time on December 7th-8th (Agenda, Tickets). The conference will also cover the booming world of Drones that are literally in the clouds. Here are our panelists for the discussion.
Chris Blackford
Chris is driving the strategic development of Sky-Futures operational and technology frameworks and the development of new partnerships with leading industry companies. Chris has been involved in the delivery of commercial UAV operations for over 30 Oil and Gas clients globally. He combines extensive UAV experience with a strong understanding of the technical and operational complexities presented with commercial UAV operations.
Jay Bregman
Jay Bregman is the Founder & CEO of Verifly. Verifly’s mission is to be the trust and compliance authority for drones and robots. Verifly’s first product gives recreational drone operators “guardrails” to ensure safe use. Verifly is funded by the founders of RyanAir, Kayak, and Saul & Robin Klein.Previously, Jay founded Hailo, one of the world’s leading taxi apps, growing it from conception to hundreds of millions in revenue and raising over $100M in funding from Union Square Ventures, Accel, and others.
Buddy Michini
Buddy has a BS, MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research has included adaptive control for indoor UAVs, autonomous battery swap for aerial platforms, autopilot design for R&D, and robot learning from demonstration. As CTO, Buddy helps guide the long-term product roadmap to incorporate new developments from industry and academia into the Airware product line.
Held on December 7 and 8, (and preceded by a weekend Hackathon), Disrupt is one of the most anticipated technology conferences of the year.
We’ll start each day with panels and one-on-one discussions featuring TechCrunch writers and editors, special guest speakers, leading venture capitalists and entrepreneurs addressing the issues of the day. In the afternoon, we host the Startup Battlefield competition which culminates in six finalists taking the stage at the end of the event for a shot at winning the Disrupt Cup, and taking away a £30,000 check.
You can grab tickets to the conference or tickets to Startup Alley here, where you can showcase your startup.
And if you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact sponsors@beta.techcrunch.com.
In addition to onstage panel sessions and fireside chats, Disrupt will also feature Startup Battlefield. Startup Battlefield competitors pitch their companies live and onstage to innovators, investors and influencers in the tech community. TechCrunch identifies emerging companies to demo and compete for a prize of £30,000 (€42,000) and the coveted Disrupt Cup, won previously by Mint.com, Yammer, Fitbit, and Dropbox, among others.
Startup Alley offers another way for early-stage companies to gain exposure with a setup that encourages both exhibiting and networking, and provides high visibility. Roughly 200 startups comprise Startup Alley with around 100 new companies demoing on Monday and 100 demoing on Tuesday.