DriveOhio’s “Vertiport Innovation Challenge” Focuses on STEM Outreach in Schools

Dri­veO­hio has col­lab­o­rat­ed with North­east Ohio’s ‘Mas­tery School of Hawken’ to launch its lat­est Ver­ti­port Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge, reports a press release. Employ­ing Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing and Math (STEM) skills, stu­dents are to focus on iden­ti­fy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to imple­ment Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Over the next month, stu­dent teams will work with indus­try men­tors to devel­op appli­ca­tions with­in the health­care sup­ply deliv­ery, “mid­dle mile” car­go trans­porta­tion and “last mile” drone deliv­ery.

The release states, “The final pro­pos­al will not only pin­point solu­tions, but also the avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture need­ed to sup­port oper­a­tions, such as a net­work of ver­ti­ports or mobil­i­ty hubs, in align­ment with the recent­ly released Ohio Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Net­work.”

Mike DeWine

Gov­er­nor Mike DeWine, com­ment­ed, “As the state’s man­u­fac­tur­ing foot­print grows and trans­porta­tion tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to advance, invest­ing in Ohio’s emerg­ing work­force is crit­i­cal.”

He con­tin­ued, “These sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy-based out­reach pro­grams help pre­pare our next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, show­ing our stu­dents that oppor­tu­ni­ties are lim­it­less.” 

One group of stu­dents will brain­storm how to use drones to deliv­er gro­ceries and food; anoth­er is to tack­le how eVTOL Air­craft could trans­port vital med­ical sup­plies between hos­pi­tals; and a third is to look at using eVTOLs to fly car­go between logis­tics hubs.

Julia Hodges, Found­ing Fac­ul­ty at Mas­tery School of Hawken, said, “This design chal­lenge with Fly­Ohio allows stu­dents to engage in learn­ing about physics and tech­nol­o­gy and gain expo­sure to this excit­ing new indus­try through the lens of the real chal­lenges pro­fes­sion­als in the advanced air mobil­i­ty field are grap­pling with.”

Julia Hodges

Preeti Choud­hary, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Dri­veO­hio, added, ”We already know that our invest­ments in advanced air mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to grow Ohio’s mobil­i­ty econ­o­my for decades to come and reach­ing out to stu­dents in the class­room and tap­ping their pas­sion, is just anoth­er way to posi­tion Ohio for suc­cess in this space.”

Back­ground

Dri­veO­hio is the State’s por­tal to advanc­ing smart mobil­i­ty. Togeth­er with its part­ners the organ­i­sa­tion has devel­oped the world’s most advanced smart mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem of con­nect­ed, autonomous, elec­tric and shared trans­porta­tion, both on the ground and in the air.

Dri­veO­hio is com­mit­ted to devel­op­ing the work­force via out­reach pro­grams for this new and quick­ly-evolv­ing indus­try, by help­ing stu­dents embrace and envi­sion future smart mobil­i­ty careers.

If inter­est­ed in the Ver­ti­port Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge, please con­tact: workforce@drive.ohio.gov.