The College of Engineering’s Daniel Pack, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, recently served as a judge in the “Drones for Good” international competition in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. In addition to serving as a judge for the competition where more than 800 teams from all around the world competed for a $1M prize, Pack was invited as Plenary Speaker for the event with a speech titled, “Developing Cooperative Unmanned Aerial System Technologies.”
“The judging experience was wonderful,” said Pack. “We evaluated technical, presentation, and demonstration areas for each team submission. There were judges for three different categories (governmental, national, and international) and I served as one of five judges for the governmental category.”
There were over 800 team submissions but event organizers conducted a set of evaluations before the event so there were total of more than 30 teams who actually presented and competed at the 2015 International Competition. According to dronesforgood.ae, the competition is dedicated to rewarding the most promising prototypes of future services that may benefit humanity at large. The goal of the international competition is to highlight the most advanced research into UAVs and drones and accelerate their application in humanitarian, development and public service applications.
In addition to judging and speaking at the competition, Pack also had a chance to get to know a little bit more about the city in which the event was held.
“This was my first time in Dubai and the city blew my mind – the merging of old and new cultures, architectures, and lifestyles could be found all in one city,” said Pack. “The city was vibrant with people from abroad living in harmony with emirates with their traditional costumes and customs in a city made of historical buildings and sky scrapers. It was wonderful!!”