Airbus Group and Local Motors Partnership enters Phase II

Las Vegas, 6th September 2016 – Airbus Group and Local Motors Inc. announced today the launch of the Phase II of their partnership during the InterDrone 2016 International Drone Conference and Exhibition held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

This new phase will focus on building the Airbus Drone Services Platform (ADSP). The ADSP is a digital distribution platform for drone-based apps and services.

Phase II is a continuation of the companies’ joint work together, which commenced in April 2016 and resulted in the highly successful “Airbus Cargo Drone Challenge”, a co-creation competition for the next generation of commercial drones. With 425 entries, the challenge, which ended in July, was the most successful Local Motors Challenge ever conducted, and the top selected projects will now be reviewed before potentially becoming part of an industrial programme.

The development of the ADSP will begin with a Rapid Co-creation Initiative at InterDrone, open to all attendees, to submit the best and brightest business cases for drone services. Challenge submissions start on 8:00 a.m. PDT Wednesday, September 07, 2016 and end at 11: 59 PDT on Thursday, September 08. The winners will be announced on-stage live at InterDrone on Friday, September 09 at 11:45 a.m. PDT. Visit http://LocalMotors.com/InterDrone2016 to view the challenge entry form.

“Phase I of our partnership demonstrated to Airbus the power of community-based creation and open innovation,” said John B. Rogers, Jr., Local Motors CEO and co-founder. “Phase II of our work together will now demonstrate Airbus’ commitment to the community. The results will be nothing short of game changing and I could not be happier to continue our journey into the world of UAV, built on an open system, with Airbus.”

“We are excited to expand our experience with co-creation and the community to the realm of software and services.” said Jana Rosenmann, Head of UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) with Airbus Group. “We are optimistic that Phase II of the project will lead to challenging prevailing technologies and business models in the world of drone services”.

After the Rapid Co-creation Initiative at InterDrone, Local Motors and Airbus Group will follow up with a second event, a Hackathon, to be held next Sept 17th-18th as part of the HackMIT 2016 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About Airbus Group

Airbus Group is a global leader in aeronautics, space and related services. In 2015, the Group – comprising Airbus, Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Helicopters – generated revenues of € 64.5 billion and employed a workforce of around 136,600.

About Local Motors

Local Motors is a technology company that designs, builds, and sells vehicles. The Local Motors platform combines global co-creation with local micro-manufacturing to bring hardware innovations, like the world’s first 3D-printed car, to market at unprecedented speed. Discover To learn more, visit www.localmotors.com 

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