AIn’t just about drones

• Aerodyne isn’t Kamarul A Muhamed’s first foray into drone services. His previous media startup had a drone division offering visual solutions, and he quickly realized there was greater potential.
• The motivating factor for the pivot? US$128B — the projected value of the drone industry back in 2014. By 2020, the actual number was far from that. In fact, it wasn’t even 25% of the projected figure, Kamarul shared.
• Fortunately, as a visionary leader, Kamarul already figured out something game changing in 2017 : it isn’t about flying drones, it is really about data. That’s why he considers 500-backed Aerodyne to be a data company first. “In fact, I have more than 150 data engineers and AI scientists,” he said.
• Knowing the potential is greater than just Malaysia, he has been scaling overseas too. Aerodyne secured several strategic M&As by looking for top companies in the region, then investing and taking a controlling stake in the company.
• The company started with 3 people offering project monitoring solutions for 1 site. In just 2 years, the team grew to 200, and is monitoring 50 sites today.
• Aerodyne’s latest pivot is to focus on AI tech. Kamarul envisions the development of an enterprise LLM (large language model) that would allow for a sort of ‘Uber-ization’ of dronetech.
• Now, the team aims to solve national problems in agriculture, logistics, and even education. Aerodyne Flight Institute is just the beginning. Kamarul revealed that they want to start a university to build the right talent pool in Malaysia.
• Read the full story on VulcanPost.