SPEAKERS
Maria Algar Ruiz holds a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from ETSIA (Madrid) and ENSICA (Toulouse). She obtained her postgraduate Master’s degree in Fluid Dynamics from the Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium. After her studies, she worked as a Project Engineer at the CERN Research Institute and at Airbus. She joined the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in 2006 holding various positions. In the beginning of 2019, she was appointed as the EASA Drone Programme Manager directly reporting to the EASA Executive Director.
EASA
Rafał Paprocki – Head of Unmanned Traffic Management Projects Department in Polish Air Navigation Services Agency is responsible for development of the PansaUTM system and U-space concept within polish airspace. Fan of digitalisation, new technologies and unmanned world. Licenced drone pilot (VLOS/BVLOS). He merges his interest in UAV technology with everyday duties.
PANSA
Head of HV operation in Západoslovenská distribučná a.s., currently he is the head of the team responsible for the construction and maintenance of HV lines in the whole Western Slovakia. He is responsible for the deployment and efficient use of UAVs in work processes, the use of means for condition monitoring and diagnostics of HV lines, in vegetation management processes, as well as for the installation of bird flight deflectors on power system conductors.
Západoslovenská distribučná, a.s
Student in precision engineering and optical engineering. Head mechanical engineer of REXUS_GAMEon
REXUS_GAMEon
After graduation from Military Air Force Academy in Košice, Tomáš Schóber started his military career as the GCI controller in CRC in Zvolen. Later, he moved to (continued to) Flight Training Department of the Air Force HQ, where he was responsible (in charge) for national and international exercises, cooperation with foreign armed forces, as well as with ATC entities. After leaving the Armed forces, he worked as project manager and solution architect. At present, he works at R-Sys company as a product manager
R-SYS, s.r.o.
CEO, serial entrepreneur, and passionate about the newest technology. The last couple of years working on the “twinzo – digital twin,” bringing digital twins to everyone. To manufacturing plants, ports, offices, everywhere…
Twinzo
Tomáš Kakula is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Technical Testing Institute Piešťany, Inc. (Technický skúšobný ústav Piešťany, a. s.). In the past, he worked as Director General of the Competitiveness Section at the Ministry of Economy and as Head of the Competitiveness Unit at the Permanent Representation of the Slovak Republic to the EU in Brussels. During his previous positions, his main responsibilities included the business environment, SMEs, innovation, and industrial policy. He was also a member of the negotiation team for the state aid case of Jaguar Land Rover’s strategic investment in Slovakia. He holds a master’s degree in business management from the University of Economics in Bratislava, where he also earned PhD. in the field of financial management.
Technical Testing Institute Piešťany, Inc.
Vladimír Foltín has been professionally involved in aviation for more than 25 years. He started his career working for an ANSP in Slovakia, first as an AIS technical support, later as an ATCO and instructor, and a leader of various ATM development projects. His experience in the ANSP culminated into a position of a senior safety management official
Vladimir now works in the GA and VTOL certification department of EASA. He manages certification projects and shares his ATM experience with other working groups. In 2016, during Slovak Republic presidency of the EU Council, he was appointed as a chairperson of the EU Council working group for aviation.
EASA
Ing. Nikol Vašutová completed her studies at Department of Air Transpor at CTU in Prague and since that she has been working at UAS Integration office at Air Navigation Services of the Czech Republic. She participated in several national and international projects focused on design and implementation of U-space/UTM and air mobility throughout the EU. As UAS Coordinator she is responsible for designing the development and implementation of UTM systems and U-space concept within Czech airspace.
Air Navigation Services CR
Professionally, he has long been involved in the operation, inspection and maintenance of power distribution equipment and activities related to environmental protection and vegetation management in power line corridors. He has been working on UAS issues since 2016. In the company Východoslovenská distribučná, a.s., he has introduced the standard use of these devices in various inspection and diagnostic activities, vegetation management and service work. Recently, he has been intensively involved in the issue of BVLOS inspection flights and their inclusion among the standard ways of UAS operation at Východoslovenská distribučná, a.s.
Východoslovenská distribučná, a.s.
Fabian studied Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and worked as RF Engineer in the Rexus GAMEon project.
REXUS_GAMEon
Maj. Ing. Mário Malatinec graduated in 2000 from the SNP Military Academy in Liptovský Mikuláš, Faculty of Air Defence. Since 2016 he has been working as a Civil Aviation Officer at Sliač Airport, and since 2019 at the Flight Safety Department of the Air Force Headquarters of the Air Force of the Slovak Republic. In 2019 he completed the Inter-European Aviation Safety Program Management course at Kapun Air Station, Germany.
Air Force Headquarters SR
Dr. Robert Oliver Ladig is a researcher working as Associate Professor the University of Southern Denmark (SDU)’s Dronecenter. His expertise lies in advanced aerial robotics, unmanned aerial systems, and automation in complex environments. Dr. Ladig’s research has been instrumental in the advancement of the aerial manipulation research field, which is crucial for practical UAS applications such as infrastructure maintenance and disaster response.
His work has been published in various journals such as MDPI Sensors and MDPI Drones, reflecting his contributions to the fields of UAV-based applications and robotic system design. His research continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the field of robotics, making significant impacts both in academia and industry.
University of Southern Denmark (SDU)
Ján Mečiar is a popular TV JOJ presenter with many years of experience in the media environment. Thanks to his interest in technological and innovative topics, he accepted the invitation to be a presenter at the DRONTEX 2023 conference.
Moderator of the conference
Rastislav Sopko has long been involved in sales and marketing in managerial positions, mainly in the energy sector. He is also active in environmental issues through several platforms. He has been working as a Director of the Mám Dron Association since the beginning of 2022.
Mám Dron Association
Raffaello Mariani is Associate professor in aeronautics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He holds a BSc. in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, AZ, USA, an MEng. In Aerospace Engineering – Experimental Methods, from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA USA, and a PhD In Aerospace Engineering from the University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. After his PhD, he worked as a Wind Tunnel Test Engineer for ONERA The French Aerospace Laboratory in Fauga-Mauzac, followed by a position as a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore prior to joining KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2018.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology – Higher Education and Research
Jonas Quinque is a student in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology with specialization in Navigation, Sensor Fusion, Radio Frequency Electronics and Embedded Programming. During the past three years, he was the Head of Electronics and Software in the Rexus GAMEon Project.
REXUS_GAMEon
Ing. Tomáš Hettych graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava, majoring in Automated Control Systems. He is currently a Member of the Board of Directors at the Cybersecurity Competence and Certification Centre, previously he worked as a Cybersecurity Senior Manager at PwC and until 2018 as CSO (Chief Security Officer) at the multinational pharmaceutical group Sanofi. He has extensive experience in IT service management, process, project, information and physical security, optimization and standardization, acquisitions and IT procurement. He is Vice President of the Slovak branch of ISACA and co-founder and long-time Chairman of the Presidency of the Slovak branch of itSMF. He holds international certifications ITIL v3 Expert, Cobit2019, ISO/IEC 20000, 27001, 22301 Lead Auditor, M_o_R, Prince2, TOGAF, CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CRISC and CDPSE.
Cyber Security Competence and Certification Centre
Dr. Martin Saska received his Master’s degree at Czech Technical University in Prague in 2005, and his PhD degree at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, within the PhD programme of Elite Network of Bavaria in 2009. Since 2009, he has been a research fellow at Czech Technical University in Prague, where he founded and leads the Multi-robot Systems lab (http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/), and co-founded the Center for Robotics and Autonomous Systems that currebtly cooperates with more than 70 researchers in robotics (https://robotics.fel.cvut.cz/cras/). He was a visiting scholar at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2008, and at University of Pennsylvania, USA in 2012, 2014 and 2016, where he worked with Vijay Kumar’s group within GRASP lab. He is an author or a co-author of more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed conferences with multiple Best Paper awards, and more than 50 publications in impacted journals including IJRR, AURO, JFR, ASC, EJC, with over 5500 citations indexed by Scholar and H-index 41. His team won multiple robotic challenges in MBZIRC 2017, MBZIRC 2020 and DARPA SubT competitions (http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/projects/mbzirc, http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/mbzirc2020, http://mrs.felk.cvut.cz/projects/darpa).
Czech Technical University in Prague
Ing. Martin Jančo founded and manages M2M Solutions, a Slovak technology company focused on the support of supply chain management, logistics and production processes. Currently, he is mainly involved in new product development and innovations in the field of mobility and production. He is also involved in a number of activities that contribute to solving R&D challenges.
He serves as a member of the Government Council for Science, Technology and Innovation, a member of the Presidium and an industry representative in the Smart Mobility Association of Slovakia and at the same time as a visionary for the Smart Mobility domain. For his significant contribution in building the smart industry ecosystem, including the smart mobility and space sector, he was awarded in 2021 in the category of Science and Technology Personality.
M2M Solutions, s.r.o.
Brig.Gen. (ret.) Ing. Ivan Bella is undoubtedly one of the greatest personalities not only of the Slovak Air Force. After studying at the SNP Military Aviation College in Košice, he became a fighter pilot in 1983. On March 23, 1998, he left for the Star City near Moscow, where he began to prepare for his space flight. In 1998, he became a member of the French-Russian-Slovak crew of the 27th expedition to the Mir orbital station. Later, he served as a military attaché at the Slovak Embassy in Moscow, and since 2013 as a military attaché at the Embassy in Kyiv. In 2021, he worked in the Aeronautical and Naval Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Transport of the Slovak Republic.
DRONTEX 2023 Ambassador
Andrew Hately is a senior researcher in the Drone unit at the EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub in France. He was the technical coordinator of the CORUS and CORUS-XUAM (CORUS extension for Urban Air Mobility ) projects which produced and updated the concept of operation for U-space, Europe’s UTM system. He is now the technical coordinator of CORUS five. He is involved in U-space research through the U-space Coordination cell and participates in projects including SPATIO which is maturing separation processes, U-ELCOME an implementation project in Spain, Italy in France with a focus on Harmonisation, and EUREKA a project to develop the traffic management aspects of Vertiports for passenger operations as part of U-space. Andrew is involved in the European Network of U-space Stakeholders and is a member of the ICAO Advanced Air Mobility Study Group.
EUROCONTROL
Elina Millere has over 14 years of expertise in aviation and in EU Regulatory framework development. Beginning her career with the Latvian ANSP “LGS” in 2011, she transitioned into regulatory roles in 2014 as an inspector for the Latvian Civil Aviation Agency, eventually leading the Unmanned Aircraft Flight Safety section. In 2018, she joined EUROCONTROL, focusing on U-space integration, Support to States with a special focus on Airspace Risk Assessment. Currently, she is seconded to the European Commission, where she contributes to the implementation of the EU Drone Strategy 2.0.
European Commission
Until 2024, Štefan worked in key Czech and Slovak state institutions in the field of civil aviation, where he dealt with the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the common airspace. He has been a member of several international and national working groups dealing with the issue of UAS and protection against their illegal operation. Currently, he and his team at ZEPHYR UAS are involved in the integration of UAS into commercial corporate environments, consultancy services and the provision of complex advanced UAS services, with a particular focus on the energy, security, construction and civil aviation sectors.
ZEPHYR UAS, s.r.o
Matúš Sura is the founder and CEO of Terradron s.r.o., where he is responsible for the strategic development of the company in the fields of aerial mapping, inspections, thermal imaging, and geospatial data. Matúš has extensive experience in the corporate environment, gained through his work in advocacy, as an in-house lawyer, and as a manager in the banking sector. As an enthusiast of new technologies and digitalization, he views the UAV segment as a space with limitless possibilities, providing key information with significant potential for industrial applications.
Terradron, s.r.o
Dr. Jozef Rodina is a co-founder and CEO of the Airvolute company with more than 15 years of experience in robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles. He, together with the Airvolute team, pioneers AI-based autopilot for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles for top-tier customers in the enterprise and defense market from the US, Germany, and Israel
Airvolute, s.r.o.
Ákos Haramia founded his first company as a 23-year-old student of STU Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Quality Management. During his studies he started to work in project management. After a short trial of working in the corporate world, he decided to fully dedicate himself to his business. He and his partners started several technology and non-technology projects, several of which grew into functioning companies. Within these companies, he was mainly involved in strategic management and business development. He sees huge potential and scope for the development of new devices for industrial use in the drone industry.
Aliter Technologies, a.s.
We continue to work intensively on the programme…
Change of the program reserved
Until 2024, Štefan worked in key Czech and Slovak state institutions in the field of civil aviation, where he dealt with the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the common airspace. He has been a member of several international and national working groups dealing with the issue of UAS and protection against their illegal operation. Currently, he and his team at ZEPHYR UAS are involved in the integration of UAS into commercial corporate environments, consultancy services and the provision of complex advanced UAS services, with a particular focus on the energy, security, construction and civil aviation sectors.
