Ep. 10 - From Airport to Air ports

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Hey everybody, this is Marco Marinucci with Mind the Bridge. Today we have a new episode of our Open Innovation Talks podcast. Today the topic of the day is the future of aviation. With me I have amna Areda of AviationX Lab. The avionation X Lab is an awesome project that was born from the vision and support of the Dubai Future foundation. And it's very interesting as is probably the first and only project that sees the collaboration of entities that typically are seen as competitors. Specifically here we're talking about the Emirates Airlines, Airbus, George Collins Aerospace, Thales. They're all working together to produce the new technologies and future of aviation for the years to come. As a reminder, Open Innovation Talks is a podcast that is brought to you by Minder Bridge. Minder Bridge is an innovation advisory firm that works at intersection of corporates and startups. So enjoy the show. Good morning again from Silicon Valley. This is Marco Marinucci with Minder Bridge. Today we're going to talk about the world of sustainability and the future of travel with a fantastic project. Its name is AviationX. And with us we have the manager of AviationX Lab, Amna Alreda. Hi Amna, Good morning.

Hi Marco. Good morning, Marco.

Yeah, so this is a very interesting project that we wanted to cover also because it's led by industry, so it's not just a single company. And we thought that the overarching theme is particularly relevant these days. Not just from the source and the beginning of the project, but also how the project is developing over time and try to support an industry that is highly affected. Everybody here and our audience has some connection with and that is aviation and travel in general. And then you know, the during and the post and hopefully post Covid setup. So Amna, a little background about yourself, maybe just to introduce your job.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Marco. Thank you for having me again. So my name is Amna, I manage the Aviation X Lab. My entire career has always been innovation. I've actually started initially out of Seattle with Boeing, spent a couple of years with them. I then moved to Emirates and I'm part of the innovation department at Emirates and that role transitioned me into the Aviation XLAB later on. Marco, do you want me to jump ahead and give a quick intro to Aviation X label Sure.

I think this is the perfect time to do so.

Thank you. So the Aviation X Lab, and I'll tell it in a story because it does have a very beautiful story to it. The Aviation X app is in partnership with Emirates Airline, Airbus, Collins Aerospace, GE and Talas. And traditionally, when you hear these names together, it's always under a business setting to try and make a sale, you know, always very business focused. But this is the first time in the entire industry where, where these five forces come together under a single roof to really think about what does the future of aviation look like. And there is no other perfect setting because you have the provider, you have the suppliers, you have the entertainment systems, you have all of them collaborating together. And really, the whole vision behind the Aviation X Lab was okay. You know, the aviation industry is doing quite well pre Covid, of course, hopefully post Covid as well. But what do we need to continuously do to make sure that we're updated, that we're part of the progress, that we're part of the innovation team going forward? So that really was the whole vision behind the Aviation X Lab.

And so you start, I think the ideas and the first conversation started in 2017, if I remember correctly. But then the first real beginning was a couple of years later, right before COVID And obviously, you know, the world around you change dramatically before going there. So why these specific partners? And were they already collaborating in some sort of a mission or it just were united by division behind Aviation X?

Absolutely. So the partners were always, you know, collaborating and uniting, as I mentioned, on a different front when it comes to sales and airplanes and so on. But the whole purpose behind the Aviation XLAB and how it really started is again, as you mentioned in October 17th, that's really when the seed was planted, I like to say, and we fall under an umbrella of Dubai Future foundation and mostly under Area 2071. And now what Area 2071 looks at is the next, you know, the hundred years of the UAE. Who, for those who are not familiar, the UAE. Dubai was established in 1971. So 2071 is 100 years from that. And it's really looking at where do we stand as a country in terms of progress, in terms of key industries, how do we ensure that we remain as successful as the last 10, 20 years have been? And that's where Air2071 was launched. So obviously, travel plays a big part in the UAE economy, a massive part. We rely quite heavily on tourism, Dubai as a business hub as well. So a lot of things are focused around Travel. So that's really where we fell behind the vision of our leadership to really try to understand how can we ensure that what we create is sustainable not only for today, but for the next 20, 30, 50 years. That's when the Aviation XLAB was launched and now when Aviation X Hub was launched. What we really also wanted to look at is we're not looking at solving quick based challenges. We were really looking at solving what we refer to as moonshots. Marco, I think you're very familiar with moonshots coming from a Google background, but for just everyone else, a quick overview what a moonshot is. It's an impossible mission statement. Everything that we do is to try to make turn that impossible into a possible outcome. So Innovation Exile was launched. We launched in October 2019 with two main moonshots. The first moonshot was a carbon negative aviation industry. Just saying that sounds impossible, right? Because obviously planes rely on fuel, fuel emits carbon. So how can you ever create a carbon negative aviation industry? And that's exactly what we wanted the world to help us solve, to look at innovations perhaps through random thoughts, carbon offsetting, for instance, or electric planes, hybrid planes. But really the thought was really very futuristic innovations that are going to help us reach a carbon negative aviation industry. The second moonshot that we have is airport to airport. And that's really looking at the transformation of the airport journey. Marco, I think you're very well traveled and I don't want to even think of how many hours you would have spent just waiting in line to check in your bags or at border control or the unnecessary cues that you sometimes see. That's really what we wanted to also help solve for a seamless airport journey where what you imagine that you want your airport journey to look like, that's exactly what we want to be able to deliver. So these two were really the moonshots that we're looking for.

Marco, is the airport. What's your definition of airport or what your, your definition that you use inside? What's the vision of an airport?

So the name itself, an airport, was very interesting how we came about it, because if you think of an airport, right today, they're massive infrastructures are quite big, you know, they require a lot of space, you know, a lot of maintenance, a lot of costs also behind it. But when we were thinking of airport, right? So it's almost like, you know, when you think of, you know, the gas station, right, you know, it's suited everywhere you just go, you drop off your things and then that also automatically transports you into your next destination. Of course that's very futuristic post 100 years thinking, but that's really what you wanted to look at because if you look at your airport journey today, there are a lot of things in between. Whether that's checking in your bag, you know, airports, sorry, passport control again, walking through duty free, getting to your terminal, if that's even within the same terminal that you checked in from, there's quite a lot of time that's wasted. So the perfect journey I think would be an extremely seamless one where all of these different touch points that you have a are contactless touch points, you know, zero wait time touch points where it's almost you go straight from, you know, your car or your home, straight directly and into the plane. That will be obviously the ideal word that we're trying to solve for through the moonshots.

So a lot of thoughts there. You know, again from the main driver of the project, starting from the. The idea of moonshots that as you said, is. Yes, it's very. There's a lot of those in Silicon Valley. Yeah, we used to see those in Silicon Valley. In fact, actually in Silicon Valley there is a saying the Yol is trying aim to the moon. The worst that can happen is that you hit a star and so at least you get a star as an option B. But I think it's important to understand the core also from the main driver of the whole project. You mentioned that from the Dubai Future foundation. The fact that you're sitting also in a physical space is really the core of also the nation, the ERA 2020 71. So give a little bit of a, you know, sense of why is that important for. For the nation itself?

Absolutely. I like to refer as Emirates Towers, which is where we're located in, physically in Dubai, as the innovation hub and I'll explain why. So as I mentioned, we fall under Dubai Future foundation and Air 2071 is the umbrella as well under it. And the reason that this holds an extremely important factor when it comes to innovation is because they have a mandate to really look at technology, to really look at future innovations. They're continuously launching various projects, for example, Dubai Future Accelerators, which works directly with government entities to understand what are their challenges today and how can they really accelerate towards solving for these challenges and using startups. Startups is a relatively new scene in the uae. It's only been around the last couple of years, but today that's completely shifted. Again, a big thanks to Dubai Future foundation for that because they've introduced startups to governments. And governments, you know, as we historically know, you know, take quite a lot of time processing, are used to working with, you know, the giant companies. But in uae that's absolutely transformed, transforming, because governments are relying quite heavily on the use of startups, on quick transactions and really facilitating a lot of the things that customarily would take ages to process, you know, to give you just a quick indication of why, our space is also quite in the hub of innovation, as I like to say. We have the youth hub that sits right across of our office. The Youth hub was the first youth ministry worldwide. We also have the robotics lab, we have the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence, we have the Ministry of Possibilities, which was a ministry that was launched specifically to deal with any impossible task. So let's say if you're in a minister and you're dealing with something that sounds quite impossible, you go to the Ministry of Possibilities and they will facilitate a way again for that impossible to transform into a possible. So, so as you see, we have quite a fantastic range of different features right under our ecosystem that really facilitate and encourage that innovation process to take place.

That's fantastic. Just the idea of the Ministry of Possibilities, even just the name of it, I think is a driving force. So all of those are in the.

Same building, in the same tower, under one single roof? Yep.

Yeah, that's. I mean, hypothetically speaking, but also physically under the same. The same roof for real. So fantastic. And then that roof also is a roof for some of the corporates that you mentioned, the partners that are the sponsor of that project. So let's talk about how, for these two major moonshots that you were describing, so airport to airports and the carbon negative shift, what was the initial process that you guys were envisioning in how do we filter potential projects? What's the roles of the corporates behind and what is the throughput. So what is the potential output? Again, that's before COVID 19 and then we talk about how that kind of shifted.

Absolutely. So before COVID when we initially launched the moonshots, what we were looking for again are a range of solutions that can help us reach the moonshot. And we always knew it's not going to be one single solution that's going to transform the industry into being carbon negative or one single solution that's going to answer all of the airport challenges that we have. So when we launched and we did it quite differently, we said, all right, we're looking for any solution that can help us reach that moonshot, and that solution can be Today, an idea so you know your researchers, your aviators, anything, and you know, a simple idea that they have, or it can be a more established startup or even companies. So we completely opened it to anyone that has anything that can potentially help us reach that moonshot. And the way that the Aviation X app works is that everything is digitized. So the whole application process sits on a portal, again hosted by Dubai Future Foundation. And we had the applications open for a couple of months. And what we also have in Aviation xlab is what we refer to as the Aviation XLAB Council. And the Aviation XLAB Council consists of a subject matter expert from each of the partners. And the reason that we wanted the subject matter experts on each of the topics so one to do with sustainability and travel and want to do specifically with airport operations is because we wanted them to be the ones to look through the ideas to try and understand it. To try understand, is there potential? Does it fit the criteria, is it scalable? And so on. The Aviation X App Council, they were the ones to shift through all of the applications that we received and then highlight the top 10, 20 finalists that we received again. Then they also went through an additional round of validation with the Aviation Exap Council. Again, almost like your pitch day. So, you know, pitching their ideas, trying to understand, you know, what are the future thoughts for the ideas, what does development look like, what does a realistic POC look like. And then out of those validation rounds, we then selected top two finalists. But I just want to take that to step back. So as I mentioned, Marco, we had two moonshots, the carbon negative and the airport to airport. The airport to airport moonshot we had to put on hold. And I'll leave that when we dig deep into why we did that. But we focused very specifically on the carbon negative moonshots and we went ahead and selected two companies again in support with our Aviation X App Council, as well as the board members. They get the final say on any company that we select. So that's a little bit about the process that goes through the AviationX lab.

You mentioned the console. Inside the console there is a one representative per partner or more than one.

It's one representative per partner for each moonshot. So we ideally have obviously two council teams, one for the carbon negative and then one for the airport to airport.

And typically what kind of background those people have is people already dedicated to inside innovation, R and D or more on the business side.

So more absolutely more towards the R and D and more towards innovation. So, you know, some of them run the you know, innovation projects that they have at their own partner companies. Some of them would be, you know, subject matter experts. So you know, for instance, from the Emirates team we have environment, the environmental team, a representative from the environmental team who sits as part of the council. So it's quite a nice range of subject matter experts that we have and it really facilitates, especially now that we're launching with the two companies, they're always there and they act as your in house mentors going forward as well, which is quite important to have just a.

Different question, but if other companies in the world would be interested in joining the day the joint venture, is there space for other partners or what is that a closed kind of network as it's set up?

So the founders, the founders group is obviously finalized and it's only the five partners, but we're always looking at different partners to explore what kind of capacity we could partner with them. So we'd love to hear from any partners that are interested, of course, and.

There are a few. Definitely the topics that you're addressing are key to that. All right, so that was the fantastic beginning 2019, so you've probably done the first few cycles, but then Covid hit and the whole industry got totally decimated of the industry of travel and even more aviation. So what happened?

Absolutely. So as I mentioned, we started October 19th and Covid embraced us in January and it hit, and it hit the aviation industry in a way that no one could imagine. And I say this because when Covid first hit and we were having the discussion with our leadership and that was around January, February time frame, you know, the mindset was, you know, this will probably be similar to, you know, 9, 11 or we know, the SARS when you know, things are shaken for a couple of weeks. But you know, things go back to normal, you know, by. And everyone had that perception of by April, May, things will be, you know, completely back to normal. And April and May is when every single country in the world was on lockdown and for the first time airports closed down. For the uae, that has never happened before. So the industry was shaken in a way that no one expected. And of course, you know, we have a fantastic range of industry leaders within the Aviation XLAB board. And I recall we had a board meeting to discuss, you know, what does that look like for the Aviation xlab? Should we push through? Should we put the projects on hold? And of course the airport to airport, we had some fantastic ideas coming through. But at that time the whole focus of the industry was Covid specific and we didn't want to be unfair to the applicants that applied and bring them through knowing that if their solution doesn't respond to Covid, there might not be a lot of interest going forward. So what the board had asked us to do is to a redefine the airport to airport challenge Moonshot that's going to be coming in cycle two. We've actually completely paused the airport to airport. But alongside that, they asked us to launch a Covid specific challenge. And the main reason was that the board wanted to instill passenger comfort. So having our board members, you know, again, and I recall them, and I'm quoting them, they would say, look, if tomorrow, you know, let's say, Marco, you're going to be traveling tomorrow, what can we provide to you, not only as an airline, but as an industry as a whole that's going to make you feel comfortable, you know, whether it's by yourself or taking your family on a flight, that you feel that the industry is doing all that it can to provide a safe and comfortable environment. And again, I think coming back from a Covid era, price is no longer going to be the thing that passengers will look for the most. It's going to be comfort, hygiene, obviously, you know, spending less time in the airport, getting to the destination especially fast and as safe as they can. So when we launched, knowing all these things, when we launched the COVID specific challenge and we referred to it as a traveler well being because it really was all around well being and passenger comfort, it was very different than the Moonshot. And I say that because we were looking for solutions that we can execute and implement today before tomorrow. So it wasn't things that we wanted to develop. It were things that, that were already part of the market or coming into the market that we can take on board and provide to our passengers as well. So that was really the thinking that we had launching the challenge. And we launched it in partnership with Dubai Future foundation, again being the backbone for innovation. And it was the first challenge that we launched which was completely virtual. I think it ran for a total of six weeks. And we had.

When was it? How long ago?

Of course, it launched end of August, starting September. And it was the first challenge where we received quite a lot of traction. I think we had over 100 applications just in those six weeks. And all of the applications, obviously we also had a dedicated council for that challenge. And I want to say very proudly, the council was extremely impressed. We were quite happy to see how quickly, you know, the innovation world and the, you know, the startup ecosystem but also companies worldwide were attempting to respond obviously to this global pandemic, especially from a travel perspective.

What, what is the value proposition for the startups that you attract? Is there an equity investment? Obviously there is a potential scaling with some of the key partners apart. They're buying the, you know, the ideas and the, and the solutions. But is there also any other commitment?

Absolutely. So the skating was the biggest, I want to say, value proposition, just because the company that we selected, and I'll inform you a bit more about them later, they get the opportunity to work not only with Emirates only, but they get to work with all of the five partners in developing their solution and launching it. And again, because we fall under the umbrella of Dubai Future foundation and any company that becomes part of the Aviation Ex app in terms of their part of our program, they then get quite a lot of different service offerings from, you know, visa, you know, the most basic things, entrepreneurship visa, from being able to come into Dubai, set up their offices, receive the, you know, certification that's necessary. So we really facilitate a lot of future business transactions as well. For this specific one, the traveler well being challenge, there is no equity just because we're looking at companies that are already there that we can go ahead and, you know, market straight away and onboard as part of our product offerings.

And I remember you were mentioning there were some fantastic stories and, and projects that came through that, that first challenge from all over the world. And so, for example, I remember the one, the robot to sanitize the entire entire plane. So you want to, you want to give us a couple of stories about those projects?

Absolutely. So like I mentioned, we had quite a range of very interesting and very diverse solutions. You know, one of the ones that we had received, one of the applications was a company from the UAE called Sanitize Experts. Yep, absolutely. And they do exactly that. They have robots that would go through spaces. So if you think about the airport, quite massive spaces, right? And the man labor required to clean the airport continuously is quite demanding from a financial perspective, from a physical perspective. But these robots, ultimately what they can do is sanitize various areas again, completely. There's no manual effort required. You can put them in, you know, lounges. But what's also more interesting is that when we looked at that, we tried to understand, okay, other than the airport, where can this be deployed as well, whether that means, you know, hospitals, malls, restaurants, you know, the plane itself. So the opportunities were quite endless. And in addition to their airport, they had also the UV wand, which again, let's say you know, you take that on board with you, whether it's the cabin crew or the passenger, and just do a quick swipe down your seat until you have yourself a freshly sanitized seat. So this was one of the applications that we had received.

So can we go back into. So I see a quick picture here. How tall, how big is this object? Just to understand the dimensions, of course.

So I'll just mention it in centimeters. I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was around 80 to 90 centimeters.

Okay, so it's a real, you know, robot looking, you know, future looking, like the ones you see on movies.

Absolutely. And I believe the company were quite flexible in terms of customizing different robots depending on the needs of the client as well.

And is this a product that is already in the market or is being developed as we speak?

No, this is a product that's already in the market.

Fantastic. All right, how another one? The one actually I think that won eventually the challenge.

Absolutely. So the other team that I'm going to be mentioning is Nanoxy and Nanoxy actually were the winners of the Traveler well being challenge. And what they provide is a quite interesting solution. So it's a patented solution, actually, where it can cover any surface, any coating at all. And that surface, once exposed to light, and it can be your electrical light or your sunlight, which we have quite a lot of in Dubai. And that surface becomes absolutely virus proof, bacteria proof, micro proof, for up to a year. And that in itself is quite fantastic. Because if you think of the airport, people are always very concerned about where they leave their passport or what, you know, the counter, if they're touching any counters, you know, the elevators going up to the lounge. There's quite a lot of touch points still at the airport. So our thought is to really completely eliminate any transmission risk through that. But then we want to take it a step further. You know, when you go on board your seat, Marco, and if you recall the plane seat, which I hope hasn't been that long that you can still remember them, but what that does is even, you know, your airplane seats, and if you think about it, you know what, you touch the screens and so on, if you would go as a passenger knowing that all of these are sanitized, not because someone came and wiped them down, but because there's a solution that doesn't even allow any virus to sit on them, then all passengers would feel a lot more comfortable going on board the plane. And I think it would give us all a break from the hand sanitizers that I think we're all getting very tired of.

Yeah. So that's very real and very exciting in looking at solutions that have an impact to billions of people that I think has been the driving force since the beginning. The idea of, you know, support the masses and have a substantial impact. What's next? What do you expect to happen in, you know, next year, in the next few years? What, what's the, what's the overall vision? How do you think this project can, can grow?

Absolutely. If you ask me this question, I would tell you a very different response. But, but I think everything with COVID has really made us understand really how substantial and how important the aviation industry is and also how, I don't want to say sensitive, but how impacted it really got by this global pandemic. And I think that really created a mind shift, especially with our leadership, to try and understand, you know, going forward, what is that focus area when it comes to the aviation industry and what are future innovations that will almost make us bulletproof? I like to say, you know, to future, not only future pandemics, but any future disturbances. Right. So, you know, when you look at the aviation industry, you already have, you know, any weather impact can drastically impact your operations. Obviously, you know, the political climate of the country, but these are things that are a little bit out of your control. The pandemic was the biggest example that I think hadn't been considered in a long time. So I think going forward as the aviation exa, what we really want to focus on is to ensure that the aviation industry as much as possible can be resilient to a lot of these external factors and what are the different solutions and innovations that we can work towards, not only as an airline and not only as an oem, but as an industry as a whole, and I like to say as a community as a whole, to really ensure that the industry continues to thrive and continues to drive without, you know, any challenges and without any obstacles as we had faced the last year.

And I think the fact that you were able to readdress your focus in such a short period of time and really put it on pause, I think very ambitious projects to focus your energies and resources into something that has an impact today and not in the future. I think that, that, that tells really the, the impact and the, the velocity that you are able to, to put in, in the market. And I think that I command you for that, that, that, that actions and, and I think the, that gives a good sense of really the whole ambitions of this fantastic project together. So with that amna I think that we look forward to see future development and not just that, but also the success stories that you'll be able to drive through these initiatives. So thanks again. Hopefully we'll be able to fly to maybe using Emirates as well.

I hope. We would love to have you on.

Board airlines in the world by far and looking forward to more interesting conversation with you. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Marco. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed the show. As usual, your feedback is much welcome. So please send your comments thoughts idea for future topics on our social channels, specifically on LinkedIn or any other social channels. Just look for Mind the Bridge. Also just as a note, we're in the middle of the summer. We are also taking a few weeks off, but we'll be back with more interesting conversations and interviews with senior leaders in the world of innovation. So keep following us, stick with us and talk to you soon. Bye.

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