Bio

I founded Skybase in 2017. Skybase is an Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) company based in New Zealand and Australia, and soon California. We have created a Flight Autonomy Upgrade System, for Aerial Firefighting. The system is called SOFI. This is particularly relevant in the context of climate change, because we can use aviation to massively reduce CO2 emissions from wildfires, which are getting worse every year. In 2021, wildfires released 150% more CO2 into the atmosphere than what the whole of Europe released- amounting to ~6.5Gt of CO2 or 17% of the global total. Today, aerial firefighting is still limited to less than half of the time- during the day- and when the visibility is good. But with our SOFI upgrade system, we turn existing aeroplanes into drones, meaning we can use that same aeroplane to operate as an unmanned drone by day, night and in poor visibility, being safely monitored from the ground by a qualified aerial firefighting pilot. This more than doubles our ability to control wildfires, thus reducing global CO2 emissions, while also saving lives, communities and biodiversity. It’s extremely exciting and rewarding to combine my personal passions- in aviation, tech businesses and the wellbeing of our planet. Get in touch if you want to join the journey- as a team member, partner or funder.