When we connected with Kespry CEO George Mathew for an interview earlier this year, one concept that came up directly and indirectly was around the importance of the data that was being gathered by drones. How this data is being used to create an aerial intelligence platform that’s an end-to-end solution is something that Kespry is focused on, and that focus was evident with the expansion of their executive team.

As part of that expansion, Jitender Aswani has joined Kespry as Vice President of Products and Analytics. He will oversee product management, user experience and data science, and the way in which data will impact the development of artificial intelligence is something he discussed in a recent post where he detailed the impact of AI on enterprise class drones. Suffice to say, the information gathered by drones will become a bigger and bigger factor in our physical and digital worlds.

Jitender Aswani

Jitender Aswani

Aswani most recently served as head of data engineering for core growth at Facebook, and prior to that held senior leadership positions at other companies in product and engineering. In the interview below, Aswani explains how that experience will impact what he plans to do at Kespry, what’s the best way for commercial drone operators to think about data, why the pairing of industry cloud apps with innovative drone-tech will be so significant and plenty more.

Jeremiah Karpowicz: What can you tell us about your experience scaling analytics solutions? Will it be directly relevant to what you have planned to do at Kespry?

Jitender Aswani: Data and data-inspired decisions are the primary source for the phenomenal growth of many Silicon Valley tech companies including Facebook, Google, and Netflix. All these companies have built a world-class data infrastructure which allows them to collect massive quantities of data very efficiently and then leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to surface actionable insights in real-time. This level of data fluency enables them to continuously grow and engage with their customer base at an unprecedented velocity.

Our customers have repeatedly stated that more frequent collection of data using Kespry industrial drones and subsequent analytics using Kespry Cloud Apps gives them an edge over their competitors. Our goal is to dig deeper in each industry and uncover more such data-inspired opportunities therefore increasing the business value and impact for our customers.

 

I find myself talking about “data” more and more these days, but that can sometimes be an amorphous topic. How have you been able to focus on this topic in a way that means something specific to commercial drone operators?

Industrial drones are allowing our customers to collect data in an accurate, faster and safer way. Data without analysis is like crude-oil. It needs to be transformed and mined using industry focused apps to inspire business decisions. Data to decisions in hours and not days is what we obsess about at Kespry.

 

At Kespry, you’re set to oversee product management, user experience and data science. Do you foresee innovations in this space being more about the development of new techniques/technologies, or about refining what’s been established and incorporating customer feedback?

In four short years, Kespry has established a leadership position in the drone-tech powered industrial solutions. Customers across many industries are discovering that Kespry's industrial solutions are complete, accurate and above all, very easy-to-use. Customer impact is the single biggest thing we care about at Kespry. We deeply believe that blending data-science with customer-centric user-experience will enable us to deliver the right value-proposition to our customers. Of course, we can't thrive without having a tight feedback loop with our customers. We are constantly evaluating new ways of leveraging data and analytics to build industrial solutions that are an extension of our customers, empowering them to achieve more with less.

 

I’ve talked about and have written about “complete drone solutions”, but I find that many people define the term in a different manner. How do you define a complete drone solution, and what makes Kespry’s offering distinct?

Industrial use cases leveraging drone-tech have expanded rapidly. As a result, many companies of all sizes and background have entered the market. Almost all of them have thus far delivered a broken and disconnected experience to industrial customers, except Kespry. Our drone-tech paired with turnkey cloud apps for various industries offers a seamless user-experience and provides immediate value in accuracy, safety, cost and time.

We have a healthy respect for our competitors and we are not resting on our early success. We are continuously innovating in co-development with our industrial customers and executing on opportunities which show clear business impact for them.

 

You mentioned the difference your drone-tech paired with turnkey cloud apps represent for various vertical industries, but what does it mean for individual users in terms of the drone hardware and software they should be focused on?  

We believe that industrial drone's novelty as a standalone solution will start to wear off. With that said, the combined duo of industrial cloud apps and drone-tech will continue to be a very effective solution for the foreseeable future. Kespry was one of the first industrial drone-tech companies to envision this and, since then, we have been pushing the frontier on both drone-tech and cloud-apps together. Our customers are asking for more innovative solutions for complex problems around mine planning in aggregates, persistent topological progress in the AEC markets, and general inspection in the property and casualty market. We have to-date delivered a strong value proposition to our customers and there are many more impactful opportunities on the product front that will further push the value proposition going forward.

 

In what ways will this focus on industry cloud apps paired with innovative drone-tech impact the present and future of Kespry as a company?

Industrial drones are facilitating persistent and frequent monitoring of assets at unprecedented levels. We are just starting a multi-decade long journey with industrial drones. Kespry is at the forefront of bringing industry cloud apps paired with innovative drone-tech. Our mission is to bring this value-proposition to all industries. We are all very excited about our mission, industry leading position and strong customer-focused execution.