Editorial | Aerium Summit, Showcase for Commerce putting innovation on display
If one of the purposes of Johnstown’s Showcase for Commerce defense industry expo is to put local technological innovation on display, then it’s fitting that this year’s event will be linked with the second annual Aerium Summit.
The nonprofit Aerium is sponsoring its namesake gathering from Tuesday through Thursday at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Richland Township – named after the late congressman who was the driving force behind Showcase for Commerce’s creation.
This comes in the wake of one of the bigger pieces of aviation-related news to hit the region recently – the announcement in March that Cambria County would be the site of a new program using airborne drones to quickly get medicine and medical supplies to emergency scenes.
The project will involve installing a network of radio sensors across the county to direct the drones and prevent interference with other air traffic, officials said at the time.
The use of drones could expand into other industries and public services if the emergency response model succeeds, our Randy Griffith reported.
And the Cambria County network could expand and connect with similar networks in Virginia and Ohio, making this region “the beating heart of the very first nationwide advanced aerial mobility system,” said an official from ATA LLC, the company helping develop the sensor network.
U.S. Department of Transportation official Robert C. Hampshire said: “We are looking to this area, this region, to really serve as a model here in Pennsylvania … that other places across the country can learn from these projects about drug delivery and medical services. This is really ground zero here for learning about how this service works.”
Drone technology was a big part of the inaugural Aerium Summit last year, and this year organizers are aiming to show how the nonprofit is becoming a hub for aviation services in Pennsylvania, Griffith reported.
Meanwhile, Showcase for Commerce will be held from Wednesday through Friday in downtown Johnstown, offering industry and government leaders chances to network – and putting “Johnstown’s indispensable contributions to our national security and defense on display for the nation,” as U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. said in a statement earlier this month.
The keynote speaker for the expo’s Government Acquisition Leaders Briefings & Panel Discussions luncheon, Laura D. Taylor- Kale, has a job focused on what Showcase is all about – she is the nation’s first- ever assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy.
Last year’s gathering included announcements that Danish drone and robotics technology company UXV Technologies would open an assembly facility in Richland Township, and that local companies Concurrent Technologies Corp. and JWF Industries had gotten defense contract awards worth more than $335 million in total.
Casey said he “look(s) forward to seeing this year’s innovations” at Showcase for Commerce – and so do we.
