I am a passionate leader, manager, and innovator. I joined InFarm in 2018 as the COO but quickly moved into the role of Chief Information and Technology Officer, where I oversaw the strategic direction and execution of the company’s software engineering, data analytics, cloud computing, cybersecurity, IT operations, and hardware development.As the CITO of InFarm, I was responsible for:- Driving the digital strategy and roadmap to enable InFarm’s growth and innovation.- Leading a team IT and engineering professionals across engineering, architecture, security, data science, and support functions.- Developing and implementing best practices and standards for IT governance, risk management, compliance, and quality assurance- Building and maintaining strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including customers, partners, vendors, and industry associations.- Leveraging data and analytics to generate insights and optimize business performance.- Fostering a culture of collaboration, agility, tenacity, learning, and customer-centricity within the engineering organization, and across the company.- Architecting, designing, developing, and managing our developers for all internal systems- Where required, creating quick prototypes for evaluation and learning.- Designing, procuring, installing, and maintaining our local data centre to host our systems.Some of my key achievements at InFarm include:- Delivering a cloud-native, but edged deployable platform that supports InFarm’s global expansion goals and scalability requirements.- Building a data processing pipeline that has the capability of processing image data for an area of over 200,000ha at 5cm resolution, in less than 12 hours all on-prem.- Upskilling my team so they know cloud native tools and techniques, as well as upskilling the skills in the languages that were used extensively across the company (C# mainly, but also Python, C++).

Straddling both DevOps and Operation; my position is a combination of a little of everything to get the business ticking along. Currently exploring our huge datasets with the mind of optimising the capture, processing, and delivery mechanisms to our clients.

Providing clients with support across on-prem and cloud infrastructure, services, and products. Also providing services similar to that of a CIO to ensure that the client is setup on the right track to ensure that long term business strategic goals, and technological requirements are meet and balanced with their current budgets and requirements.

Ashley Walker was the Chief Pilot of FlyFreely looking after all operational matters from the overall system that allows multiple organisations (small and large) to operate under our certification and provide the organisations a risk mitigation that is truly unique. This entire system has been specifically designed to allow large fleet, multiple pilots and multiple locations to operate while having complete compliance with all appropriate regulations.FlyFreely allows organisations to focus on their core values and what they deliver to their clients ensuring the best possible products without all the overheads usually associated with RPAS operations. This includes regulatory compliance, insurance, risk management, internal training as well as auditing.Ashley's primary responsibility is reviewing any operations and ensuring that it complies with the legislative, policy as well as ensuring that the platform and pilot can conduct the overall operation. In addition, Ashley works on several special projects to extend the operations that FlyFreely can conduct. Some of these in the past have included: night operations, RPAS Restricted Zone operations, aerial application, underground operations and specialised training.

Ashley Walker was the chief pilot of NQ UAV, during his time he was responsible for the implementation of the systems that cover the core operations of the organisation as well as extended to cover all inbound enquiries, proposals, and finalisation of accounts. All systems that have been implemented used the concepts from Lean Sigma 6 as well are compliant with the ISO 9000 series.Throughout this time, Ashley developed data processing workflows to include the survey deliverables, photography as well as specialised data products as required by clients meet strict quality standards. Projects that Ashley has worked on to become different operations within NQ UAV include, survey operations, aerial application, night operations, underground mine operations, asset inspections as well as RPAS training. These industry leading systems and procedures have been implemented into FlyFree.lySome specific operational achievements that Ashley has attained while the Chief Pilot of NQ UAV include:• Developing operations manuals and risk management system, that was then adopted by a regulator (2013);• Regular operations within 3NM of a Class C Controlled aerodrome (2014);• Operating airships indoors, outdoors and in stadium environments (2015);• Operating large multirotor in underground mines (2016);• NVFR Operations within 3NM of a Class C Controlled Aerodrome (2016);• Tandem operations with manned aircraft (2017);These achievements and many more have been used during the development of FlyFree.lyIn addition to the operations as the Chief Pilot, Ashley also took the responsibilities of the Chief Maintenance Controller using his experience in the engineering field to ensure that all RPAS in the fleet were maintained appropriately and all maintenance schedules were preventative.

I reverse engineering, design and analyse mechanical components, steel structures and plastic parts. By utilising software such as Solidworks, Inventor, AutoCAD, Rapidform XOS and many others. I am able to quickly generate 3D models that show the detail of the structures that are to be built, detecting collisions, and impossible to manufacture parts and components before they are at the shop floor.We can 3D print the components or even the entire structure to create unique one off parts or to prototype the entire part to ensure that it meets the clients requirements, longevity of the part or to inspect how the parts will fit together. Our own 3D printer can print in PLA or ABS but we have access to printers that can print other plastics, ceramics, plaster or metals.Part of my job is to advise and implement software and hardware for clients, anything from a simple NAS for file storage up to an electronic document management system that links into the 3D parametric software and any office documents (or PDFs).

Layby attendant and Audio Visual assistant