The Gerald R. Ford International Airport Authority joined by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Southwest Airlines®, Stantec GenerationAV and the West Michigan Aviation Academy celebrated the second and third round of companies that graduated from the Ford Launchpad for Innovative Technologies and Entrepreneurship, or FLITE, and provided an update on the progress of the first round companies at Demo Day on yesterday, May 11th.
With support from the Office of Future Mobility and Electrification, FLITE has provided more than $400,000 in total grant funds to 12 companies focused on bringing emerging air travel technology solutions to market.
Seamless is proud to be a FLITE partner, providing the program management for the program, including: scouting globally for companies, project management of the projects selected, and facilitating the partner collaboration.
FLITE Demo Day was a huge success. The platform has successfully executed three projects. WHILL, Aurrigo and Sunflower Labs were present to demo their technology and share their learnings.
Thanks to West Michigan Aviation Academy for hosting!
Over at Gerald R. Ford Airport seeing the WHILL pilot LIVE! If you’re traveling over the next couple of weeks, take a seat and test it out. #autonomouswheelchair #lastmile
Seamless is excited to support proof of concept coordination for grantees of Ford Launchpad for Innovative Technologies and Entrepreneurship, or FLITE, which provides grants and testing opportunities to companies focused on bringing emerging air travel technology solutions to market.
FLITE provides world-class innovators unique access to the airport’s real-world environment to implement and test solutions in a controlled and thoughtful way. Working through the challenges of deploying at the airport, the partners will benefit from the learning and insights gained as they work on scaling their solutions.
Kicking off our Seamless Year out at Lavendar Life Farm with all of our amazing partners. Looking forward to another year of innovation and collaboration!
What a great night @studioparkgr with @michiganhouse featuring a conversation with Trinity Health's Brent Reed & Jessica Robinson of Assembly Ventures on the State of Innovation.
Thanks to Nevan Hanumara and Chintan Vaishnav from MIT for their white paper on Seamless.
Accordingly to their research, "Seamless presents a novel, flexible vehicle for corporate – startup interaction that is worth further growing in Grand Rapids as well as studying and adapting for other regions globally.”
See link in bio for more of their insights on the platform.
There’s a special guest joining us in the Seamless space this week! It’s Brody, @steelcase ’s WorkLounge modular workstation! Sound design startup @man_made_music is here speaking with #Steelcase and @faureciana about potential collaboration. Smart workplace solutions becoming even smarter? Sounds like it! 🔈
Today in the Seamless space, @maymobility ’s Alisyn Malek, @faureciana ’s Matt Benson & @citygrandrapids ’s @jnaramor are here to discuss what the future of safe, reliable, smart city transportation could look like in #GrandRapids.
