People often ask me, why drones?

1. How could it be anything else?

First, let’s get this straight – my work with drones is stimulating and diverse, because the industry has so much potential to affect life in almost every way.

For the moment I work in developing drone racing as a sport, training, consulting with businesses about how drones can meet their needs, and overall, how the industry can be developed domestically and globally. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Working with drones is so exciting because there are so many hats you can wear in exploring the incredible potential for drones in almost all aspects of commercial and personal life.

2. The markets are dynamic and growing

Last year, Price Waterhouse Coopers projected that the drone industry will be valued at $150 billion by 2025. But now the sector has started to see markets establish and develop, we have more data and trends to rely upon.

According to UAS Vision, commercial UAV growth in the US is expected to be between 10-20 times the current number by 2021, while the number of people enjoying drones as hobbyists is set to increase threefold, to an estimated 3.5 million units.

 And this is all set to take place in a general climate of increasing air activity, with the FAA’s annual Aerospace Forecast Report for Fiscal Years 2017 to 2037 projecting sustained and continued growth across the broad air transportation sector over the period.

In respect of commercial drones, the FAA claims that growth itself will be affected by the regulatory environment, which will clearly have an impact upon the way the sector operates and how easily participants can enter. But the current 42,000 drone fleet could rise up to a 442,000 drone fleet as a most generous scenario

Commercial drone operators are meanwhile predicted to rise in number by a whopping 69.1% per year, going from 20,362 to 281,300 by 2021.

Meanwhile, a Crossroads Today report says that the drone services market is projected to expand from $705 million in 2016 to $1.8 billion in 2022.

That’s a whole lotta growth, no matter how conservatively you look at it.

3. Drones are making a real difference to people’s lives.

Public safety drones are already helping emergency medical services, firefighters and police departments to improve the way they service emergencies.

Inspection of public works and environmental monitoring, particularly insofar as delivering improvements to the agricultural sector, are further industries benefitting from unique dynamic drone service technologies.

The contribution of drones for data collecting high-quality images, sounds, videos and sensor data is likewise set to change the way that industries manage maintenance and improvements in their productivity and products.

Even delivery services, whether for companies like Amazon, or for the delivery of drugs and medicine to remote places, have the potential to deliver significant improvements to the quality of life of millions of individuals across the planet.

Predicting the potential ways in which drones can mould our future lives is a rewarding creative exercise, because it’s all so possible.

4. Technology is making drones cheaper, and better… exponentially.

An example of technology that influences demand for drones is remote-sensing technology. It is used for maintenance, mapping, delivery of infrastructure, and detecting potential problems before they arise. It goes without saying that as technologies improve, new uses for drones become possible, and sees demand further rise.

As drones become more accessible, and their technology more essential to the daily operations of individuals and companies around the world, you can see that the drone industry is an industry that stands to make big ripples through world economies, societies and governments alike.