Imagine drones being able to get to an emergency destination before the emergency teams arrive in a small town like Paris, Texas. Imagine school-teachers being able to use drones to collect data for a live class trying to learn geometry. Imagine a drone being able to deliver fire retardant to a specific destination in a fire. Imagine being a mid-western lumber company able to use drones to see when timber should be harvested and then transported in autonomous vehicles to a facility.

This is the world of 2030 and the rising role of autonomous drones in our commercial world. Romeo Druscher, is the vice president of public safety at Auterion. His experience at NASA and in the drone industry since 2000 plus positions him uniquely to understand where this world will go and what needs to happen for it to be a platform for constant innovation. Romeo’s belief is that the drone industry is about to go open source, multi-function orientated. This will open up far more possibilities than the military and hobbyists right now for a full industry and ecosystem of applications for a machine-led economy led by all forms of data.