An Open Letter to Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco

November 13th, 2017

Dear Mayor Lee,

Thank you for your recent letter on the Drone Advisory Committee (DAC). It speaks to your vision of the future and how much your administration values transparency and inclusion. San Francisco is a place where ideas are empowered to change hearts, minds and lives. It’s why we’ve chosen to live here and why we chose to start Kittyhawk here.

Kittyhawk’s platform helps the public and private sector transparently manage their drone operations safely and at scale. However, outside of building a product that’s useful and beautiful, we also want to help build the policy around making the commercial drone industry possible. And we want to do our best to make sure that the policy shares the values that have made California a global leader in innovation.

As ambassadors of the burgeoning commercial drone industry, we realize we have the opportunity of a generation to help more people interact with aviation than ever before. We have a responsibility to help create an industry built on the tenets of safety, transparency, and innovation.

As with many new technologies that are labeled “disruptive” and “world-changing”, drones are running up against systems that were not designed to contend with their sheer numbers and capabilities. Finding a way forward requires a broad range of perspectives and viewpoints. When we listen to only the incumbent players, we’ll only get incumbent solutions.

As you surely have heard, President Trump’s executive Memorandum has extended the opportunity for municipalities like San Francisco to forge new ground in the commercial drone space by applying to be apart of the FAA’s UAS Integration Pilot Program. I want to be the first to let you know that if San Francisco applies, Kittyhawk stands ready to support your culture of safety while allowing private industry to innovate at San Francisco speed.

While the DAC is a good start, forging real innovation is going to require bold thinking and creative solutions. Let’s set an example of safety, transparency, inclusion, and innovation in the commercial drone industry.

Let’s make San Francisco’s commercial drone efforts the envy of the country and the bar by which every other commercial drone program is measured. Kittyhawk is ready to join you.

Sincerely,

Joshua Ziering

Founder & Chief Pilot, Kittyhawk.io