Dr David Cole has been actively involved in the uncrewed systems industry for over 10 years. Starting in 2013 with the founding a commercial drone services company in Northern Australia, before pivoting the company to focus on developing the FlyFreely drone management software platform in 2018 to support drone operators around the world.

Since that time Dr Cole has led FlyFreely to become an approved drone app to provide airspace authorisations in Australia, New Zealand and more recently the USA. With over 15,000 registered users across 30 countries FlyFreely has helped 100’s of companies scale their drone programs around the globe.

Dr Cole remains at the forefront of industry developments by being a member of several international working groups including JARUS, ASTM and EUROCAE. His current focus is on the automation of regulatory compliance and adoption of uncrewed traffic management (UTM) systems to accelerate the adoption of uncrewed systems globally.

Prior starting in the uncrewed systems sector Dr Cole was working as certified mechanical and structural engineer in the mining, construction and agricultural sectors. Dr Cole holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and Doctor of Philosophy from James Cook University. He is also a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.