Into the Drone Zone: Countering Aerial Threats to Critical Infrastructure | The Pair Program Ep69

Speaker A: Welcome to the PEAR program from Hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of Hatchpad.

Speaker B: And I'm your other host, Mike Gruen.

Speaker A: Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups and career growth. Welcome back to the the Pair program. I'm m. Your host, Tim Winkler. Uh, once again, I am, uh, flying solo on this one without my, my co host, Mike Gruen. Um, seems like he's playing a little bit of, of catch up, uh, from the Memorial Day weekend. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna handle this one solo. Um, and usually though, I do like to kick off every episode with like a little random banter back and forth with my, with my co host, but since he's gone, I'm gonna just going to riff with you guys for, for the random banter. So, um, you know Tom and Yaniv, welcome to the pod. Uh, quick, quick little random item. As I was doing some research and prep for this conversation around some of the more positive use cases for drone technology, and one of the things that stood out to me was, uh, drones being used to plant trees. Uh, have you heard this before? A company called Airseed Technology, where they're flying and dropping some 40,000, you know, trees every day, you know, seeds, basically. Um, so I was thinking through, you know, scenario based, if you could have, ah, a drone do like one chore around the house for you, like, what would the, what would that chore kind of be like? Mine. Mine that I was thinking through would be, you know, connecting a hose to it and maybe have it kind of pressure wash the siding. Uh, would be ideal instead of like, you know, getting up on a ladder and everything else. What, uh, what's something that comes to mind for you guys if you had a, an ability to have a drone do a chore for you at the house?

Speaker B: I would go with probably putting the dishes in the dishwasher, which is, uh, something that would take off and then push the on button if possible. That'll be like, fantastic.

Speaker A: I feel you. I feel you. Dishes suck. Uh, what about you, Tom?

Speaker C: You know, you know, for me, uh, having some sort of an uncrewed system mow my lawn would be great. I've actually got a neighbor that's got one and the, the ground clearance on is so short, like it, it mows the grass so short that the yard isn't strong enough. So all the weeds Come in. So I'm not really sure if it's, if it's doing any good or not,

Speaker A: but I can't adjust the, uh, height of the blade.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, this one's so small it doesn't have really good clearance on it, so it has to mow short, but it needs to be. Have a little bit more clearance so you can adjust the blade like you said.

Speaker A: Yeah, I have seen these kind of, uh, bot mowers, uh, but was still kind of weary about like, how effective they were or how straight the lines were going to be that they do. And you know, know the, the perimeter of the house. Um, but I dig that too. Yeah. Taking off the lawn work. Uh, cool. Yeah, we'll, uh, we'll have to continue the brainstorm here in terms of other positive outcomes. The, the conversation today is, uh, a little bit more on the, uh, you know, some of the threats, right, from, from drones, and, and when it's in the hands of, of bad actors. Um, so, yeah, we'll kind of like jump right in here and just give our listeners a little bit of a preview of the episode. So we're going to be talking about this kind of rapidly evolving threat landscape that's posed by, you know, unmanned aerial systems, specifically drones. Um, ah, of what kind of like once started out as a, like a hobbyist toy, uh, and, and uh, you know, a tool for tech enthusiasts. I, I have a drone myself. I love it. Uh, you know, getting into more of like videography and photography when we travel. But these are becoming a, a, uh, favorite weapon of bad actors that are disrupting anything from energy grids to air bases. And so, uh, we're going to talk a little bit more about this topic. Uh, and we've got two experts with us who are the front lines to help, uh, in, in stopping these threats before they take flight. So joining, uh, us are Yaniv, uh, Mendelson, the Director of Business development at Echodyne, ah, a radar tech company that's redefining situ situational awareness. Uh, and we've got Tom Adams, the Director of Public Safety at Drone Shield, uh, a global leader in counter UAS security and technology. Something I'll add about Tom. Before joining, um, the private sector, he spent 20 years in the FBI, including leading the bureau's counter UAS program. So I think that'll be a nice added perspective when we talk through from a policy perspective and things of that angle. But, uh, again, Yaniv and Tom, welcome to the PEAR program.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks for having us.

Speaker A: All right, so before we get into the, uh, the heavy stuff. We're going to kick things off a little segment that we call Pair Me Up. It's pretty simple, you know, Tell me a pairing that goes perfectly together. It could be tech related, food related, or whatever's on your mind. Um, I'll lead us off, uh, and then pass it off to our guests. So, so for today's pairing, I'm going to go with, uh, garages and startup stories. Uh, so I'm actually recording this episode out of my garage here in Leesburg, Virginia. It's the, the very same garage where I launched, uh, this company, Hatch it, uh, my business over 12 years ago now. And when I bought this house, you know, the goal wasn't really like, you know, I need a big backyard or a fancy kitchen. It was targeted to secure a space where I could start a company. Um, and uh, that's what we did. So, you know, this garage kind of saw it all from the first few hires, uh, you know, first kind of big sales wins, and um, you know, even like just creating our first version of our business model. Uh, and one of the first hires, you know, actually became my business partner and is actually sitting in this garage with me as I record. Uh, so, you know, we kind of get this nostalgic feeling, uh, every time we come back here. Uh, and so, you know, there's something about it for me that there's an energy to it, uh, and the excitement of those early startup days. So I'm gonna go with garages and startup, uh, stories and um, I, uh, think they go hand in hand. So, uh, I'll, I'll pass it over to our guest. Now, Tom, maybe a quick intro and, uh, your pairing.

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, thing. Well, first of all, thanks. Thanks for having both of us. Uh, Tom Adams. I'm the Director of Public Safety for Drone Shield. As you mentioned, we're a counter uas or counter uncrewed Unmanned System Solutions Provider. Um, and, uh, as far as my pairing, um, so my, uh, roots, uh, are pretty deep in the state of Montana. So my family first came to Montana in the 1860s, well before the fictional Yellowstone characters, uh, came to Montana and ruined the state. But, uh, my. My pairing is, um, in honor of My Montana roots are steak and potatoes. And by steak, I mean medium rare cooked steak, not well done or baked until it's dry. Uh, medium or steak and potatoes is my very important pairing in honor of my Montana roots.

Speaker A: Which part of Montana, uh, they originally

Speaker C: settled in the Bozeman, Montana area, which is. I can't even afford to move there. Now. The average cost of a house in Bozeman, Montana is around a million dollars.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's just, it's nuts.

Speaker A: Yeah. Since the pandemic, it's, it's gone insane. And since Yellowstone, it's, well, it's Yellowstone

Speaker C: and A River Runs Through Its Fault. Those two movies, uh, ruined my state.

Speaker A: Uh, classic Brad Pitt movie though. One of my favorites.

Speaker C: It's a great movie. Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I love Montana. Uh, we have some, some, some team members that work out in Montana as well. And uh, my wife and I, we did a month, uh, out in Montana. We're doing like a cross country trip and stayed in a small town called Red Lodge.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker A: You ever heard of that?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. It's not too far from building Billings

Speaker A: and Yellowstone park at the northeast entrance of, of Yellowstone. But yeah, I have a huge, uh, soft, uh, spot in my heart for Yellowstone and, and for steak and potatoes. So I, I feel you on the pairing. It's in no better place in the country to get a steak than Montana, I'll tell you that.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Uh, awesome. Yeah. Tom, thanks, uh, for joining us. We're excited to have you. And then, ah, Yaniv, quick intro and your pairing.

Speaker B: Hi. Thanks Tim, for having us again. Um, Yaniv Mendelssohn, director of business development for Echo and Radars. Uh, radar is our, uh, bread and butter. We make radars for aerospace awareness, drone detections, and other, uh, safety and security applications. Uh, my pairing is going to be, uh, my wife and my wife's best friend. And uh, the reason I chose that is we just celebrated 25 years, uh, since we met. And um, I've actually dated my wife's, uh, best friend. That was, um, I should say that that was before right now.

Speaker A: Why?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, just to clarify.

Speaker B: Yeah, just to clarify, I didn't even knew my wife at that point. Um, but we went up for a couple times. It was nice, but we both realized that wasn't, you know, a perfect match. But she was kind enough to offer me to introduce her best friend to me and I said, yeah, let's, let's do it. And so we're talking about like 25 years ago. No social media, no, you know, Facebook and stuff. People. I had like, blind dates, which I know is bizarre today, but we went on almost a blind date and you know, 25 years later we're uh, we're still married and she's still her best friend. So everything, uh, is, is in good shape. So I guess, you know, the takeaway is like, uh, A great pair can lead to, uh, to a perfect pair. Uh, sometimes.

Speaker A: I love it. Um, that's actually the first kind of like relationship focused pairing we've had and, uh, 100 episodes. So kudos on creativity there. At first I was like, I don't know where this is going. And now I see there's a good story to it. And it's, it's interesting because I've had friends, uh, in similar situations where that was the connection point was a, like an ex, uh, you know, a girlfriend that introduced them to a friend. Um, but I think that's valid because it's like, you know, there's nobody better that's going to vouch for you than your best, your best friend. So she kind of got a chance to say like, hey, this is a good guy. Like, give it a shot.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: That's cool. Well, yeah, uh, congrats on 25 years. That's also super impressive. And uh, yeah, that'll wrap, that'll wrap the, uh, pair Me up segment. Um, good pairings all around. Let's transition into the heart of the discussion. So, you know what led me to dialing in on these two guests, uh, to join me on this topic of, of countering aerial threats to critical infrastructure was uh, an article that you two co authored, uh, which was titled, you know, why Drones are the Bad Actors New Toy. And in, in this article, you guys both unpacked kind of real world incidents from, you know, airspace breaches to at airports to military bases, and um, weaponized drone attempts at energy facilities. And uh, the, uh, underscore, the underscoring like this urgent need for layered counter UAS strategies. Uh, and so it was a great article. Um, I want to use this as a platform to kind of bring that article to life and highlight some of those things. Uh, so we'll mirror a little bit of that article and then, uh, we're going to cover everything from this shift from like drone novelty to a national security threat, why critical infrastructure sites are still very highly vulnerable, uh, uh, some of these unique capabilities of radar, rf, optical detection, and then how public and private collaboration, uh, and legislative action are essential to kind of making progress here, um, to move the needle. So let's dive in. Tom, I'll start with you. In the article, you laid out a pretty sobering reality that drones are no longer novelties, they're tools for sabotage, espionage and disruption. You know, walk us through kind of like how we, how we got here and what's changed in like the past five to 10 years. That's made this such a hot threat vector.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think something that's important to state first of all, and um, I know Yaniv probably feels similar, but I don't want to speak for him is that I'm a huge drone advocate. Um, I love the technology. We talked about some examples of how it can be used, um, and how they are being used, like, you know, being able to plant trees or whatever the case may be, deliver blood, deliver cargo, um, you know, provide situational awareness for law enforcement. There's so many great uses for them. But uh, just like any other type of technology, there's uh, tools that uh, people can use to use them in a nefarious manner or even carelessly and cluelessly. And the fact that these uh, these systems are so readily available, I can order one probably on Amazon today and either get it this evening or early tomorrow. Uh, it doesn't take a lot of skill to fly many of these platforms, not all of them, but many of the platforms don't require any training and they can carry a wide variety of payloads. Uh, and you have a way in which you can retroactively, uh, add some dropping mechanisms to some of these same systems. I can order that off of Amazon also. So the fact that these platforms are readily available, they're cheap, they're easy to use, they're easy to modify, uh, a lot of the tactics and techniques for people that use them nefariously, uh, those tactics and techniques really don't know any borders. And so you could watch a YouTube video one day and deploy a system similarly the next, uh, in your own location. So, um, because of this we really need to be able to start to understand that even though drones are a, uh, potential technology for good, they can also be used carelessly cluelessly and nefariously. And so we have to have a way in which we can start to um, detect, get situational awareness, assess and then respond to those threats. And something I want to point out real quick, uh, to kind of guide this discussion a little bit, is that when a drone is up in the airspace, it doesn't tell us whether the mission is nefarious, clueless, hobby, recreational, commercial, whatever the case may be. And so the information from these drone detection systems enable that real time threat assessment, uh, from the operator. And the only way we can do that is with information. And so that's, that's what a lot of these systems provide, is that information which can help guide our assessment and then determine what our response is going to be, if any. So I'll just kind of leave it at that. To start out.

Speaker A: Yeah, the uh, the incidents are becoming more and more, you know, mainstream. Right. You start to hear more and more in these. And you know, obviously the, the New Jersey incidents, uh, were top of mind, but I think the ones that are, uh, heightened fear for someone like myself. Right. Was the Nashville uh, incident, um, where you know, I don't know where it stands today, but the man was arrested for basically plotting to attack a power substation using a drone equipped with explosives. Right. And that's where you think through critical infrastructure and these, you know, these uh, tools in the hands of an everyday person with uh, just bad intentions in mind. The uh, the outcome could be just drastically, you know, or uh, very severe. Um, and so those are the types of stories that, you know, get out into the public and then your mind starts to wander. And so, um, it should be something that's top of mind and should be scary for folks that aren't thinking that it couldn't happen in their area could. Uh, but Yaniv, you know, Yaniv, I' love to get your input. So like, from the radar side, um, you know, how, how do you think, you know, most uh, like critical infrastructure leaders maybe underestimate drone. That's drone threats or they don't see them coming at all.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're, what we're seeing is that there's just a built in asymmetry between the cost of, of getting a drone and you know, creating that weapon, uh, versus like the damage that this can cause. Right. Like it's very easy to get a drone. Cost you like a couple of hundred dollars, maybe thousand dollars. You want a more advanced one. And then this thing can create a damage which is, you know, excess in millions of dollars. So how do you deal with that problem where in order to solve this you need to start investing in, you know, technologies and, and measure that will help you understand. And I agree with, with Tom, it all starts with getting data. Like the, the number one problem we're seeing right now is that people just don't know what is going on in their airspace. They're just not aware of it. The New Jersey incident that you mentioned, that was a great example of what happens where people actually start looking at the sky and they thinking, hey, you know, we're seeing drone. But it could be like an aircraft coming to an approach at you know, 10,000ft or just stars in the in and it just amplify the chaos instead of actually helping uh, the authorities to provide a solution there. And so in order to deal with that challenge, um, you need to have some sort of a technology that tells you what is going on there. Uh, radar is not a new technology, obviously. Uh, it's been in use in the industry for many, many years. This is how our air traffic system, uh, works. It's based on radars. And so it was a natural choice, I think, for a lot of us to look at radar as a technology that will help monitor airspace and be able to tell what kind of, uh, uh, drones or aircraft are flying there. And we're starting to see much more congested airspace because everyone could get a drone and fly it out. And not everything is, um, registered or done in a way that we can actually know who's flying what. A lot of those drones are what we call dark drone, which means they're not identified. And that's a big problem because people don't play by the rules, especially the bad guys. So you can't assume that you'll have a drone register with a number and you'll be able to track it. Um, so you need to have some measures that potentially cover those scenarios where you just don't, you can't assume that those drones will be cooperative with, uh, a ground tracking system. So that's the kind of challenges that we're dealing with. And we try to develop technologies that can help support the use case and just protect in a better way and deal with this problem, which is just a growing problem as, you know, more and more things starts flying around us in, uh, in the airspace.

Speaker A: Yeah, it, it sounds like you, we, we just lack airspace awareness, like the, the, the technology to, to scale that. Right, Because I think that's where you start thinking about when you're critical infrastructure, like how many airports are out there, pipelines, how many treatment plants. Right. There's, there's an endless amount, uh, description of critical infrastructure across the country. And how do you scale that, um, to track the number of drones that are flying around these days? Uh, something that I think was referenced in the article is the layered defense model and dissecting this modern UAS tech stack. Uh, so let's talk a little bit about that. What is, uh, available to us from some of these technologies you mentioned? Radar, you know, thermal, I think was referenced. But let's, let's unpack some of those different, uh, options when it comes to how this layer defense model comes together. From a tech stack perspective, what are some of the, uh, you know, current, more progressive, uh, approaches to this detection?

Speaker C: Yeah, I can, I can kind of take Start out that part of the conversation. When it comes to the detection and um, you know, and even when you get into the defeat side of, of counter drone work, uh, it's important to note that every type of drone detection and defeat technology, they each have their own strengths and limitations. So when used individually by themselves, um, you, you have a capability. But when you start adding in layers, uh, to fill in those gaps from the limitations of the various um, types of technologies and begin to leverage the strengths once, uh, you layer those approaches together, especially rf, camera, radar I think are the most talked about components when it comes to drone detection. I think that gives you a really good opportunity to detect the variety or a large portion of the drones that are navigating through the airspace. And you've mentioned dark drones, uh, most drones today are, are, you know, typically RF controlled. But I think we're going to start to see a shift where you're going to see fewer and fewer drones that uh, are going to be controlled via rf, they're going to be dark drones or where they're not emitting RF signals either from the ground control station or the drone. So you're always going to have to have that layered approach no matter what. And then for the same reason you have challenges with uh, just using one type of mode for detection. It's the same way on the defeat side too. So it's always going to have to be that layered approach. It can't just be one uh, type of system that's going to do the job.

Speaker A: Yeah, Nev, what's your take on this? And obviously it's a lot more in that radar realm. But I'm also curious on the different types of conditions that we're detecting in and um, what you've seen kind of be effective.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, I agree with, with um, Tom about, you know, the fact that each of those sensors that are put together into a system has advantages and disadvantages. And as you want to kind of create a, um, more robust system, you need to put a few of those technologies put together. And so that makes the system much more reliable and has better capabilities. I think what we're seeing is that, you know, we're trying on one hand be able to detect, uh, drones which could be inferiors and could, you know, be used for bad purposes. But at the same time we have drones that are flying to support agriculture activities or you know, uh, dfr, which stands for drones as a first responder. So a lot of PDS are actually using drones these days instead of sending ah, you know, a police officer to a crime scene or to a 911 call. So there's actually a lot of good activity that is, you know, performed by drone. And so how do you enable that? But don't compromise on, you know, safety and being able to, um, you know, understand that, you know, these are, these are the good drones. These are the ones which, you know, are cooperative and are part of the, the team that is trying to, to do something versus the drones that could uh, be, be you know, part of uh, you know, the bad guy, uh, thing. So I think for us it's the ability to kind of map what's going on in the airspace, having the ability not just to, you know, say, hey, you know, something is flying out there, but actually classify and provide information that is actionable. So at the end of the day, someone needs to take those, all this information and you know, make a decision whether are we going to take down this drone? Is there some pilot that we need to kind of start, track and take down the drone through that? This is part of uh, taking this information and turning it into an actionable process that ultimately is designed to reduce that level of risk. But it's always going to be a large approach, always be going to be an integration of different types of technologies into one suite that is supposed to deal with that challenge.

Speaker A: Yeah, let's jump into that real quick because I think it's a good jump off to talking about DroneShield and EchoDyne and how these technologies are kind of coming together. So Tom, maybe, uh, we had uh, the CEO in the US uh on a few years ago. Uh, so Drone Shield is an alumni kind of company. Ah, to the, to the podcast. But, um, as a reminder here, like talk a little bit about where the technology is and uh, how it's being used, uh, in production, real world scenarios. And then, you know, we can kind of jump over to Nevaeh on how echodyne is integrating with, you know, the uh, technology at Drone Shield.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, as you mentioned, Drone Shields, been an alumni in the podcast. We've actually been in the space for, I think this is our 11th year. So we're kind of an ancient company, uh, on the counter, UA side, kind of a pioneer so to speak. And so we've been in the space for quite a while, um, and uh, have had a chance to evolve our technology over the years and um, build some really robust, uh, technologies that are meant to withstand a lot of uh, you know, austere type environments and situations and uh, what's interesting about the technology and how things have evolved is that a lot of those technologies that were originally built for military based um, missions now have a lot of applicability on the critical infrastructure and public safety side. Um, you know, and uh, although there are some, still some legislative hurdles for the use of some types of technologies, generally a lot of these technologies are available to critical infrastructure and public safety and they're going to be an important part of uh, of, of our physical security and airspace awareness. I mean you know we mentioned earlier about you know, how drones can be used nefariously and you think about it, they're operating in a three dimensional airspace. You almost have to have this airspace awareness as part of any physical security type program. You have to have awareness of what's going on above and around you. But what's also interesting about how these TEC drone detection technologies have evolved is that they're actually, although they can help provide security, be part of a physical security program, they also enable advanced uh, drone operations for critical infrastructure for public safety as Yaniv mentioned, for drones first responder. And so we're kind of really seeing like an evolution of kind of the perspective of what these technologies can do and what sectors they can enable, whether it's the use of drones or on the security side too. So there's really a broader application. Even my view of um, what counter drone technology would do five years ago versus what it is now has evolved immensely and my aperture has really expanded quite a bit just based on what's been happening in the last 12 to 18 months.

Speaker A: And can you just quickly describe the product itself, uh, just uh, to kind of paint that visual for the listeners?

Speaker C: Yeah, so we've got a variety of different products. We have um, rf AH based detection and defeat systems, both handheld on the move and fixed site technologies. Um, and we also have a central C2 that we can send um, all of our sensor feeds to. Uh, and in some cases it'll integrate all those sensor feeds into one user interface. But um, as mentioned we don't make radars, we don't make cameras and so we don't make acoustic sensors. And so we integrate with those third party providers to enhance uh, the capabilities for our customers. Um, and so you know having a partner like echodyne is really important to us because they bring an extra level of sensor awareness that we wouldn't have uh, ourselves. So um, you know this county us in a way is, it's kind of a team sport. Um, you have to have some other people on their team with you to help you out and to be part of that multi sensor, uh, type, you know, defense and depth solutions. So we're glad to be working with companies like a. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I guess Janie, from your perspective, you know, how did you uh, how did you guys kind of identify like this is a good fit for us from a, you know, from a partnership perspective.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I mean we've started roughly around the same time as drone shield about 10 years ago and we started actually uh, being a Seattle based company. The first product that the company developed was actually an airborne radar that was purposed to be mounted on a drone and basically help the drone kind of navigating the airspace and avoid other targets uh for drone delivers. That was a big things um, back then uh, with the Amazon Prime Air that just started back in those days uh, in the Seattle area. But then over the years the company kind of pivoted into more of the security world as drone became more of a threat. Uh and uh, I think over the years we've kind of enhanced that capability and uh, you know try to close the gap between you know the fact that there's very good technologies in the defense space. Right. Like there's a lot of great raiders and great you know tech, tech um, uh, capabilities out there but they're all purpose into you know, super expensive, complicated um, system for defense applications. So how do you take this technology and kind of brings it into the more of the critical infrastructure, commercial and enterprise world in a way that they can actually operate something like that and uh, with more affordable costs and things like that. So that gap, gap was something that we've identified early on as a company and uh, the product that we developed, the radar was uh, taking some of the high end specifications uh that you could see in the military space but just bring it to a more of a commercial uh and enterprise package that could be fulfilled in such a project. And I think what is unique about our product just in general is the resolution that it brings uh, into the space. You can think about like a high definition tv. The radar is doing something similar, uh, you know, creating kind of a high definition radar that can help scan the large 3D space but provide very accurate tracks of the targets uh, in that space and that. Why is that important? It's important because at the end of the day um, partners like Drone Shield are taking that um, radar data, they fit it into their system and they fuse it with other sensor. Whether it's an rf, um, um technology, whether it's acoustic, whether it's a Camera. And all of that is to create a common operating picture of what's happening in the airspace. So it all starts with first detecting that there's something out there and then being able to track it accurately through a camera towards it and help interrogate it or just verify that, ah, target is indeed what you think it is. And so that, uh, concept of operation is built on having those fundamental sensors and then having some sort of a software that packages all that together into a way that an operator, whether it is, uh, a prison, whether it's a police department, whether it's an airport or a port, they can actually use it and monitor their skies in a way that, um, prevents potential collisions or other threats that could occur in that airspace.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, something I think about a lot. I'm. I'm surprised there's not more collisions that take place, uh, just from, you know, uh, you know, small planes kind of coming in contact. But, you know, from a, I guess from a data perspective, in terms of, you know, the amount of activity that's happening or that we're aware of, what, what does that look like? Or do you, do you guys have, like, you know, uh, ballpark numbers on how many drones are kind of flying around in different areas at any given point?

Speaker C: I think it kind of varies. And there's not really a standard for defining what a drone sighting is. I think that's part of the problem. I've seen reports of, you know, on operational deployments, uh, I've used certain systems where it'll detect a drone, and then if it goes, uh, behind a building and I lose track of the drone, and then it comes back into view again. Some systems track that as two sightings, I track it as one. And so the way in which people define these things I think varies. Um, I think that what I am definitely comfortable saying is I think there's more drones in the airspace than what we know. Uh, because we're not really, we don't really have a broad network or these types of systems are not yet commonly deployed. And this is kind of what happened a little bit in New Jersey. We had some suspected drone sightings that, uh, were believed to be true no matter what, and every light that was believed to be a drone was believed to be true. And so it kind of put people off onto a tangent that there's an invasion in New Jersey, um, when, in fact, there's probably a lot of misidentified sightings of aircraft and, and celestial objects and things like that. But it also highlighted the fact that around our critical infrastructure, not only in New Jersey, but around the US because these systems aren't as widely deployed as they should be or could be, uh, we're not able to say, hey, well, I had systems at my, you know, electrical substation or nuclear power plant or chemical facility. We had them up. We did not detect any drones. That didn't mean. Doesn't mean that there weren't any there, but we didn't detect any drones over our space and at least gives you some information in which you could begin your investigation. Or if you did have an incident, if you've had drone detection technology up, now you can say, hey, yeah, we did have a suspected sighting. It was confirmed with drone detection technologies, and it looks like the pilot was launching from over here. Uh, we did a sweep of the yard. There's. There's nothing in here. We didn't see anything nefarious. We looked at all of our camera feeds. We don't, we think it was just a careless and clueless person or whatever the case may be. But the point is whether, whatever direction your investigation goes, if you don't have detection technology up to begin with, then how can you begin an investigation or really understand what's going on in and around your airspace? I think that's the. One of the big key gaps out there that I see is that we just. This, this type of technology needs to be more commonly deployed, uh, out there so that we can begin to detect and deconflict the airspace as needed.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a good lead into kind of like the final talking point that I wanted to cover before we kind of wrap with the segment is, uh, like this collaboration and policy piece. Right. Um, uh, so kind of, you know, going down the government path, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's obvious that, you know, a public private collaboration is crucial here. Tom, you kind of lived on both sides, you know, a lot of time with the FBI. Um, what, what is, you know, kind of this real challenge in game policy to keep pace with this threat. That's M.O. seems like it's getting quicker and quicker. Right. And, and, you know, more, more folks are tuning in, sadly, bad use cases for, uh, these drones. How do we kind of keep up with that threat? Uh, and what are the biggest bottlenecks here with getting policy to keep up?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, the technology is evolving really quickly. Um, but we haven't had any new meaningful counter US legislation passed since October of 2018. So that's over six and a half years. But in the meantime, the threat has increased, the technology has evolved, um, and so we're at a really difficult position right now. And where I see where the big issue is is that I believe our, um, lawmakers in the US Have a gross misunderstanding of what drone technology, uh, does and what kind of drone technology does. And what I mean by that is, um, you know, they're one of the inhibitors of the deployment of these technologies. There's a lot of privacy and civil liberty concerns, which I'll never downplay those because I think those are important considerations that we should always keep in mind. However, um, a lot of the laws that are preventing the wide deployment of some RF based technologies, uh, is the belief that these RF based detection technologies are grabbing people's private data and drones don't transmit that kind of data. And so I'm not aware of any counter drone technologies that are demodulating that type of data. And so we have to really look at this, uh, from a separate lens than maybe what some of these federal laws and statutes were created for five, you know, 50, 60 years ago. So we need to evolve in our thinking and um, you know, educate our lawmakers, uh, with what the technology does and doesn't do and then hopefully get to the point where we have more meaningful legislation that addresses the privacy issues if necessary. Uh, but it also needs to address these, these quickly evolving threats because right now we're um, the threat is passing us by and we're not even putting out, uh, we're not even doing some of the basic stuff we need to, at a national level to, to prepare for this threat.

Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like a very reactive approach. It's like, uh, until something happens, let's just, you know, kind of keep status quo. Um, but something that could happen could be so, you know, tragic that it's, it's going to stir, uh, stir the pot quite a bit that there wasn't m. Something more proactive being done earlier

Speaker C: to, something to your point is when the New Jersey stuff was going on, you know, the, the state of New Jersey, the federal government, everybody's like, hey, why doesn't anybody know what's going on? Um, you know, they're kind of pointing fingers at the doj, the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, the faa, the politicians were, um. But then there's a large group of us that got on the airwaves were like, look, the problem isn't with doj, DHS and the faa. The problem is, is the legislators are holding up Key legislation that would enable the deployment of these technologies more widely than they are now. And with that, uh, with that message going out, you started to see a shift where all of a sudden some of these politicians were like, oh, well, I need to co sponsor this bill that's been out for 18 months that I hadn't bothered reading before. Um, maybe I won't point the fingers at doj, DHS and fa. Maybe I need to be a part of the solution too. So I think we're starting to see a little bit of a shift in that and that there's ways in which we can handle it more effectively than what we have before.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean 2018, the amount of drone sales since then. Right. Just think through it. Um, anything on the policy side, uh, Yaniv, that you wanted to kind of touch on?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean Tom is the expert here, but uh, I think it's like drone is a disruptive technologies. Right? Like it's just like Uber, uh, for instance, how that change our day to day lives. Right. Think about airports and how the airports had to evolve to support Uber. Right. They had to allocate those different spaces and operate in a little bit different way than it used to be before. When it started it was just complete chaos. No one was, was like, it was just a mess and things had to evolve and it took time, it took a couple of years to make those changes and respond to that from a regulation perspective. And so we're seeing the same thing with drone. But the challenge here is that uh, the technology doesn't slow down, it gets faster and faster. And so the problem we'll need to deal with in two, three years, uh, are going to be even more immense because a lot of those drones become completely autonomous now. You don't even have to fly it, you can just pre program it. They use a lot of sophisticated technologies, machine learning and AI and things like that. And so we need to kind of look over the horizon like how our world will look like in five, in 10 years, we're just going to see much more autonomy and the technology is going to be there. And so we just need to figure out a way to deal with it and make the regulation adjust. Uh, even though we know it takes more time to do it, but ultimately we'll need to do it.

Speaker A: Yeah, we've talked uh, a lot on this podcast, uh, about a lot of different dual use, uh, uh, where it comes to defense tech or space tech or we're seeing this a lot in low earth orbit space and just space domain Awareness where it's like the need for better detection and better tracking. You're starting to see a lot more companies popping up that are doing this. If it's you know, radar, you know, uh, rf, you know, this is certainly uh, uh, an area of concern, uh, of just collisions in space happening, but then you know, bringing into the drone space like it's, it's clear that this is ah, ah, you know, a, going to be a problem that continues to scale if we don't get you know, some, some legislation moving quicker uh, to, to help with, of countering some of these threats. Um, and so I'll um, kind of wrap on that. I think the policy piece is the uh, was the last uh, uh, kind of talking point. I'm sure there's a lot more that we could you know, uncover here and talk through. Maybe we'll save it for a follow up episode, uh, for another day. But I do want to close this out with a uh, just kind of a final segment. Um, and that's, it's called the five second Scramble. I'm going to rattle off a couple of rapid fire questions to each of you, try to give us an answer in under five seconds. Um, you won't be air horned off if you don't. So you can, you can drag it out if you want to. But some would be business, some will be personal. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with you, Tom. You ready to rock and roll?

Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's perfect.

Speaker A: All right, here we go. Uh, if Drone Shield were an animal, uh, what animal would it be?

Speaker C: Uh, I would say what comes to mind is a leopard moving fast. Uh, there's a lot going on. Uh, there's a lot of uh, you know, kind of things that it's out trying to do, trying to hunt, survive, um, you know, take care of, take care of the family. So that's, I would say that was, that would be my uh, that would be my animal.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Uh, uh, what's your favorite part about the culture at Drone Shield?

Speaker C: Uh, uh, I think it's very um, collaborative culture. Um, it's, it's nice to be involved with a lot of decisions related to products and how we uh, take care of our customers. And so it's good to have some of that firsthand input.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: What kind of a technologist thrives, uh, at Drone Shield?

Speaker C: Uh, I think someone who can step outside the box. Um, and someone who's really, you know, I think someone who does really well in this industry is someone who's a drone enthusiast. Uh, whether you're on the drone side or the counter drone side, being a drone enthusiasts, or what I like to refer to as a drone nerd, I consider myself to be a drone nerd. Um, I think that's an important aspect of, of this mission is just really understanding the broader use of drones. The ways in which they navigate through the airspace and such are really key.

Speaker A: Nice. What are some of the kind of roles that you're hiring for over the next six months?

Speaker C: Oh, uh, man, it's growing. We're looking for field service engineers, we're looking for software people, we're looking for sales people, uh, trainers. Uh, there's a lot of, a lot of needs. Um, uh, it's growing very quickly. I, I, uh, I'm definitely no longer a junior in the company. I've been there almost a year and I think I'm in the middle of the stack now. We're growing pretty quick.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're, we're going to continue to, to plug and promote some of those roles. Uh, uh, when we promote this episode as well.

Speaker B: Awesome.

Speaker A: FBI or private sector? Which is better snacks?

Speaker C: Uh, we didn't really get any snacks in the bureau. You had to go buy your own snacks, uh, as government, but yeah, for sure. Better snacks in the private sector. 100%.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was a layup. I had a feeling I was going to the answer. Uh, what's the charity or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you?

Speaker C: Uh, I think a big one for me, um, are the ones that really stick out to me are things related to childhood hunger. Just giving kids the opportunity to be able to learn, uh, and uh, learn on a full stomach and not to be, um, you know, missing out on some of those key meals which help them to develop and grow. So I think that's a big one for me.

Speaker A: Well said. Uh, what was your first car?

Speaker C: It was a 1978 Pontiac Phoenix Light Blue.

Speaker A: I gotta, I gotta Google search that. It sounds awesome.

Speaker C: Old car. Yeah.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, it's great. Uh, favorite place to explore the outdoors.

Speaker C: I'd have to go back to, uh, back to Montana for that one. Yeah, yeah. Lots of good places to go explore there.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's beautiful. Uh, and then last one, uh, what was your dream job as a kid?

Speaker C: Actually was an archaeologist. Um, when I was very young, I got to see the, the King Tut exhibit in Seattle. And then, um, where I lived at the time in, um, in eastern Montana, I lived just, uh, I drove by the battle. Battle of the Little Bighorn. Um, historical site on the way to and from school every day. And so that uh, you know, we'd find arrowheads and other sorts of artifacts on the ranch that I lived at and so that, you know, my interest in the Egyptology and, and then just, you know, the Native American history in Montana, uh, was, were big aspects of that. So I was always wanted to be an archaeologist.

Speaker A: That's cool. Were you an Indiana Jones fan?

Speaker C: I was, yeah. Yeah, I was.

Speaker B: Good.

Speaker A: Awesome. All right, Good stuff. That's a wrap. Uh, for you, Tom. Uh, Yaniv, you ready?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Is it going to be the same

Speaker B: questions or new ones?

Speaker A: Uh, now I'm going to mix them up.

Speaker B: Okay. It's going to be challenging.

Speaker A: Some, uh, will be the same. First one, explain, uh, Echo dying to me as if I were a five year old.

Speaker B: Um, we're a group of, uh, very cool people that develop, ah, a thingy that can track anything that flies, uh, in the skies, including like superheroes and drones as well.

Speaker A: Well done. Uh, what is that? What's your favorite part about the culture at Echo Dyne?

Speaker B: Um, I think that people just have the give a shit factor. Like people really care, they take things personally, they're committed to the success of the company and really to put the efforts to make it happen.

Speaker A: Nice. What are some of the types of roles that you guys are hiring for over the next six months?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just like Tom, um, with DroneShield, we're growing pretty fast. So we have roles in sales and engineering operations, gna, ah, you name it, pretty much across the board. Nice.

Speaker A: Uh, what's your go to breakfast food in the morning?

Speaker B: Um, Kellogg's cereal. I'm a old fashioned guy, um, but I like to let them sit in the milk for a while until they get really soggy and like. So I know it's everybody cereal, but

Speaker A: serial is a, ah, great, great answer. Uh, what was your first job?

Speaker B: My first job, I was a, ah, teacher. And in the same, um, middle school that I went to, I came back there as a teacher. So. That was nice. Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, what was, uh, what was. Yeah. What is a surprising hobby of yours?

Speaker B: Surprising hobby? Um, pretty much everything around music. Um, I play a little bit to listen to pretty much every type of genre you can think of from, you know, classic, uh, Bach to like, heavy metal. So just anything around music. Yeah.

Speaker A: What's, uh, a charity or cause that's near and dear to you?

Speaker B: I, um, would go with the, uh, scouts just because the whole family is involved in that. I have, you know, two kids that started as Scouts become. Became counselor over the year, and now they're kind of, you know, educating the next generation. So it's kind of the whole family is involved in supporting the community. Less fortunate. A lot of great activities that they're doing on a weekly basis.

Speaker A: That's cool. You've had a lot of, uh, previous guests here that are, you know, big into Scouts or volunteer with, uh, with the Scouts, so.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, love to see that. Building up the next wave of.

Speaker B: Of.

Speaker A: Of men. Uh, and then last question. Yeah. What's. Who is your favorite superhero?

Speaker B: I would go with Superman.

Speaker A: Yeah.