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Community Air Mobility Initiative continues to expand and is now accepting applications for next UAPC cohort

The Com­mu­ni­ty Air Mobil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive (CAMI) has con­clud­ed its sec­ond Urban Air Pol­i­cy Col­lab­o­ra­tive (UAPC) Cohort and announced the date of its next one which will take place lat­er this year.

Top­ics cov­ered in the sec­ond UAPC in June includ­ed the fun­da­men­tals of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM), both region­al and urban air mobil­i­ty, social equi­ty con­sid­er­a­tions, inte­gra­tion of AAM with exist­ing trans­porta­tion, com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal impacts, as well as plan­ning for AAM too.

Fred Jud­son, UAS Direc­tor at the Ohio UAS Cen­ter, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the June cohort and said: “The Ohio UAS Cen­ter has gained prac­ti­cal and insight­ful infor­ma­tion as being part of the CAMI [UAPC] Cohort for the ben­e­fits and chal­lenges in build­ing and enhanc­ing a true three-dimen­sion­al trans­porta­tion sys­tem called advanced air mobil­i­ty.

“We look for­ward to con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts with CAMI and sup­port­ing DriveOhio’s Fly­Ohio AAM incen­tives through NASA’s AAM Com­mu­ni­ty Plan­ning and Inte­gra­tion Annex in sup­port of the NASA AAM Nation­al Cam­paign.”

CAMI) was found­ed in July 2019 to sup­port the respon­si­ble inte­gra­tion of urban air mobil­i­ty into com­mu­ni­ties through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. It con­nects com­mu­ni­ties and indus­try by pro­vid­ing resources and edu­ca­tion to the deci­sion mak­ers, the pub­lic and the media at the state and local lev­el. CAMI is sup­port­ed by its mem­bers, which includes a broad spec­trum of stake­hold­ers, and through its pro­grammes.

The next UAPC cohort is sched­uled in Sep­tem­ber 2021, with the dead­line for appli­ca­tions set for August 15th. They are open to pub­lic agen­cies inter­est­ed in advanced air mobil­i­ty and past cohorts have includ­ed staff from depart­ments of trans­porta­tion, avi­a­tion divi­sions, cities, coun­ties, tribes, states, air­ports, and tran­sit author­i­ties.

In addi­tion to con­grat­u­lat­ing the lat­est UAPC cohort grad­u­ates, CAMI has also wel­comed Tim Law­ton, Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing and Pub­lic Rela­tions for NUAIR, as its newest mem­ber. NUAIR cur­rent­ly pro­vides exper­tise in unmanned air­craft sys­tems oper­a­tions, aero­nau­ti­cal research and con­sult­ing ser­vices.

Law­ton said: “NUAIR is active­ly involved with both the FAA and NASA on mean­ing­ful projects to shape future avi­a­tion, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of high-den­si­ty ver­ti­port oper­a­tions, as part of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ini­tia­tive.

“We joined CAMI to help bridge the gap between fed­er­al and local AAM ini­tia­tives, share our exper­tise in advanced unmanned air­craft oper­a­tions and edu­cate the gen­er­al pub­lic on the lat­est AAM advance­ments.”

Chris Sequeira, Founder and Prin­ci­pal of CJSC LLC, has also joined CAMI as its newest Expert Con­trib­u­tor, while Alex Hall and Audrey Covert has joined as mem­bers of the grow­ing team.

Sequeira has helped cre­ate and refine some of the most impor­tant envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies, guid­ance, and analy­sis tools in Unit­ed States Avi­a­tion. Dur­ing his time at the FAA, he devel­oped a num­ber of key com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and envi­ron­men­tal impact tools and has sub­se­quent­ly gained exten­sive expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ing envi­ron­men­tal analy­sis and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment ser­vices to air­ports of all sizes.

Hall is a long-time Expert Con­trib­u­tor for CAMI and has a wealth of AAM oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence. She will be expand­ing her lev­el of involve­ment with the team and work­ing to build new con­tent and expand mem­ber ben­e­fits. Covert is a PhD stu­dent in Dublin, Ire­land, and has years of expe­ri­ence in event organ­i­sa­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and organ­i­sa­tion­al admin­is­tra­tion. She will sup­port the CAMI team with a vari­ety of ini­tia­tives.

CAMI Co-Founders Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Yolan­ka Wulff, and Direc­tor of Indus­try and Strat­e­gy, Anna Mracek Diet­rich, are excit­ed to see the organ­i­sa­tion emerge as the pre­em­i­nent voice edu­cat­ing and empow­er­ing state and local deci­sion mak­ers.

Wulff added: “Well-informed, thought­ful plans on how to inte­grate AAM into our exist­ing trans­porta­tion land­scapes will go a long way to ensur­ing that this new indus­try has the max­i­mum pos­si­ble ben­e­fit for the max­i­mum num­ber of peo­ple. We’re excit­ed to see this mes­sage being so well-received by a grow­ing group of indi­vid­u­als, organ­i­sa­tions, and juris­dic­tions.”

Any com­pa­nies inter­est­ed in tak­ing part in CAMI’s next UAPC in Sep­tem­ber 2021 can email contact@communityairmobility.org. More details on admis­sion and the cur­ricu­lum are avail­able at communityaimobility.org/uapc.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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