Program Designed For Public Safety Professionals

Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) will hold the Second Annual Public Safety Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Conference for first responders and public safety professionals.

The 2018 Public Safety UAS Conference will be held at King Family Vineyards in Crozet, VA from Monday, March 5, through Wednesday, March 7, 2018, and is intended for law enforcement, public safety, search and rescue, emergency services and disaster relief professionals who are integrating, utilizing or in the process of adopting drones as part of their operations. The three-day conference will include a series of workshops, breakout sessions, networking events and disaster and response scenario demonstrations and training.

Conference presenters will include representatives from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), along with a variety of public safety experts from Virginia, Delaware, Florida, Texas, Maryland, Nevada, Georgia, Massachusetts and New York. Presenters will discuss the adoption and integration of UAS in first response, law enforcement and emergency management.

Several UAS technology companies including FLIR Systems, Inc., DJI, Yuneec, PrecisionHawk, Pix4d, SwissDrones, Altus, Altavian, Flyability, Flymotion US, Kongsberg Geospatial, HoverFly and others will be on-site to demonstrate and integrate hardware and software platforms during the event.

Cost to attend the conference is $249 per person. Fee includes all meals during the three-day event and access to all training exercises, classes, product demonstrations and networking events. Attendance is limited to 185 participants with preference given to public safety, fire, rescue, law enforcement and other emergency or disaster response members or affiliated organizations. Attendees are responsible for their own hotel accommodations and travel arrangements.

This is the second year that PVCC has hosted the National Public Safety UAS Conference. The first conference, held in 2017, brought together more than 21 state and national agencies and 14 UAS technology vendors, as well as 225 attendees that came from all over the U.S. and traveled from as far as Europe and Canada to attend.

(Source: PVCC news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.pvcc.edu/uasconference