Skydio For All
Skydio’s social impact program. An industry initiative first that focuses on opening the door to aerial robotics as a viable career path for future generations from diverse backgrounds. The program engages with local and global communities on educational, civic and cultural initiatives that have a lasting positive impact on the world — from youth STEM education to military veterans support to cultural and historical preservation, as well as wildlife conservation and humanitarian aid.
Program Impact 2022-2025
12,000+
Students with hands-on flights
480+
Vehicles donated
65
Non-profits supported
A little backstory…
When I joined Skydio, I was brought on as a Product Designer, at a start-up that often includes research, beta testing with users, making manuals, app store deliverables, and other items in-between since teams and resources are on the smaller and limited side.
Never once did I ever think I’d be making new job for myself because of some side research. Over the course of 2019, my first year at Skydio, it became quite obvious that frankly, there weren’t a lot of women in the drone industry. It’s not just the drone industry, but generally the aviation industry as a whole doesn’t have significant representation. Coming from the video game industry, which also has similar issues but made substantial progress over the mid 2000’s, I was curious why the drone industry had the majority male representation it did.
As a result, I ended up interviewing just about everyone at Skydio at the time along with dozens of leaders in the drone industry ranging from experts on drone regulations and policy to k-12 teachers and Colonels in the Air Force. What I found was broadly aviation was stigmatized to be a “boys” activity and girls at young ages often didn’t receive exposure nor support to pursue opportunities or careers in these fields. The same narrative happens with many industries. There are so many points where a kid can be deterred from pursuing something, whether that’s because someone told them they can’t or they lost belief in themselves. There’s a lot of nuances within these barriers, such as cultural, cognitive, home life, financial, etc that I won’t get into here but feel free to reach out to me if you ever want to chat more in depth on the subject.
Not too long after I start this rabbit-hole-of-research, COVID happened and all of the social turmoil that pursued.
During the pandemic, several employees (myself included) to together to brainstorm new ways to support communities in need with Skydio’s core strengths. Out of shared conversations and convictions emerged the foundation for what would become Skydio For All.
In a stroke of being at the right place at the right time, I was given the opportunity to develop, grow, and lead the program.
From side project, to spending half my work time on it while we hired more product designers, to full-time - I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to develop a program that creates a lasting positive impact for communities and future generations.
