Vertical Integration: NEOM's Ground-Up Approach to eVTOL Ecosystems

🚁 How do you build the future when no blueprint exists?

Most breakthrough technologies fail not because of technical limitations, but because we try to solve them sequentially: we develop the technology first, then figure out the regulation, then build the infrastructure, and then train the people.

NEOM is rewriting this playbook entirely.

In 2023, they conducted Saudi Arabia's first eVTOL flight in conditions no aviation authority has ever certified for—50°C+ desert heat, dust storms, and coastal corrosion that would ground conventional aircraft. But the real innovation wasn't the flight itself. It was flying while simultaneously co-developing regulatory frameworks with GACA and designing air corridors integrated with urban planning. → Building energy grid infrastructure for vertiports → Training pilots for software-defined aircraft → Modeling economics

across 32 million future residents.

Traditional aerospace development typically creates delays of 5-7 years between technology readiness and market deployment. NEOM's cross-functional working groups, which bring together OEMs, regulators, urban planners, and energy providers, are eliminating those delays by building the entire ecosystem in parallel.

The broader insight: This isn't just about flying cars. This integrated development model applies to any breakthrough technology that requires multi-stakeholder coordination, such as space commercialization, quantum computing infrastructure, autonomous systems, and biotechnology deployment. The key lesson from Borja Blond, CEO of AAM Operator at NEOM: "The only way to predict your future is to create it," and creating it means building supporting ecosystems alongside the technology, not after it.

* Sequential thinking creates innovation bottlenecks. Ecosystemic thinking creates innovation acceleration. *

What breakthrough technology in your industry is waiting for this kind of integrated approach?

#EcosystemicFutures #TechnologyDeployment #eVTOL #SystemsThinking #Innovation #NEOM #AerospaceEngineering #RegulatoryInnovation

Guest:  Borja Blond Fdez de Arroyabe, CEO of NEOM Vertical Mobility Operating Co

Host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

Series Hosts:

Vikram Shyam, Lead Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center

Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works

Ecosystemic Futures is provided by NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project in collaboration with Shoshin Works.