2021 Women to Watch in UAS Global Awards launched to honour achievements in the UAS sector

Nom­i­na­tions are now open for the 2021 Women to Watch (WTW) in UAS Glob­al Awards, which aims to recog­nise those mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in the unmanned air­craft sys­tems mar­ket.

Cre­at­ed by Women and Drones, the awards are now in their fifth year and have been designed to acknowl­edge and moti­vate women who are dri­ving change and lead­ing the drone indus­try clos­er to gen­der par­i­ty. In cre­at­ing this list, it says it aims to raise the pro­file of women doing great work and encour­age more women to embrace UAS tech­nol­o­gy.

There are indi­vid­ual awards for lead­er­ship, entre­pre­neur­ship, safety/service and edu­ca­tion, while the team awards acknowl­edge organ­i­sa­tions in their pur­suit of excel­lence, embrac­ing diver­si­ty and which have a cul­ture of inclu­sive­ness where women are engaged in key or lead­er­ship roles.

In cre­at­ing this recog­ni­tion, the awards also aim to raise the pro­file of women in both the urban air mobil­i­ty and advanced air mobil­i­ty mar­kets.

Nom­i­na­tions must be sub­mit­ted online by 11.59pm CST on Fri­day, May 14th. The win­ners will be invit­ed to col­lect their award dur­ing the Inter­Drone Con­fer­ence, which takes place in Dal­las, Texas, from August 10th to 12th. And for the first time, each win­ner will receive a $500 micro grant.

Dawn Zol­di, CEO and Founder of P3 Tech Con­sult­ing, who is also the ambas­sador for this year’s pro­gramme, said: “These awards are life-chang­ing; I’m liv­ing proof. My receipt of the Lead­er­ship Award in 2019, and meet­ing Sharon Ross­mark and the oth­er amaz­ing women in the drone indus­try at Inter­Drone that year, inspired me to cre­ate my com­pa­ny.

“In a lit­tle over a year, I’m in it full time, con­nect­ing peo­ple with a pas­sion for advanced tech plat­forms with the plans, pro­grams, poli­cies and infor­ma­tion they need to suc­ceed. This award chal­lenged me to live out my pas­sion, which I’m now doing. This is why I raised my hand to be the Ambas­sador for the 2021 pro­gram, help­ing Sharon take it to new heights by giv­ing out micro grants to indi­vid­ual win­ners through the WTW Glob­al Fund. I want­ed to pay it for­ward.”

The award cri­te­ria is as fol­lows:

The Lead­er­ship Award, which is spon­sored by Sabrew­ing Air­craft, will recog­nise an indi­vid­ual with an excep­tion­al abil­i­ty to moti­vate peo­ple or groups to achieve a com­mon goal, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to: edu­ca­tion, pol­i­cy, research & devel­op­ment, inno­va­tion, busi­ness and human­i­tar­i­an efforts.

The Entre­pre­neur­ship Award, spon­sored by Iris Automa­tion, wil recog­nise an indi­vid­ual inno­va­tor who has sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ed the UAS indus­try and pos­sess­es ‘out­stand­ing busi­ness acu­men and inno­v­a­tive prac­tices that led to the suc­cess of her com­pa­ny, projects or the efforts of oth­ers.

The Pub­lic Safety/Service Award, spon­sored by Sky­dio, will recog­nise an indi­vid­ual who serves the pub­lic in any capac­i­ty and epit­o­mis­es com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment or bet­ter­ment ser­vice-ori­en­tat­ed activ­i­ties, includ­ing human­i­tar­i­an efforts, pub­lic pol­i­cy, military/federal or law enforce­ment etc.

The Edu­ca­tion Award, which is spon­sored by the Unmanned Safe­ty Insti­tute, rec­og­nizes a teacher or instruc­tor who active­ly engages stu­dents with drones, shares the val­ue of drones with­in cur­ricu­lum and devel­ops drone pro­grams oppor­tu­ni­ties and pro­grams and pro­vides pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment to oth­ers as an ambas­sador for drone and STEM edu­ca­tion.

The Inno­va­tion Team Award, spon­sored by Vola­tus Aero­space, will recog­nise a team, group, com­pa­ny, agency or organ­i­sa­tion in the drone ecosys­tem which active­ly encour­ages and inspires women to dis­rupt and inno­vate with­in the UAS indus­try.

And the Team Spot­light Award, spon­sored by Fox­Fury, recog­nis­es a glob­al co-ed team, group, com­pa­ny, agency or organ­i­sa­tion in the drone ecosys­tem whose over­all work con­tributes to the pos­i­tive per­cep­tion of drones, while fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of female empow­er­ment and inclu­sive­ness where women are engaged in key roles on the team and/or in lead­er­ship posi­tions.

In addi­tion to these spon­sors, oth­er com­pa­nies which have donat­ed to the Woman to Watch Glob­al Fund include Black­swift Tech­nolo­gies, Tran­scend Air, Drone Indus­try Sys­tems and Zing Drones. Any com­pa­ny want­i­ng to donate to this year’s awards can vis­it: https://fundly.com/women-to-watch-global-awards-2021-fund

For more infor­ma­tion about the awards and eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria, vis­it https://womenanddrones.com/wtw-2021/