Speaker Bio

Fabrice has a unique combination of deep technical and regulatory expertise, along with experience launching and leading new technology ventures. Fabrice is the current Chief Operating Officer at SkyGrid. In this role, he focuses on the identification of technology and market trends and how those trends could be harvested for the benefit of the company by developing novel products, use cases, and business models that turn technology R&D into viable commercial products within the aerospace industry.

Prior to joining SkyGrid, Fabrice led cross-functional corporate venturing and technology incubation endeavors at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI). In that role, Fabrice created and launched multiple business pursuits for General Atomics.

Preceding that position, he served as the Chief Engineer for GA-ASI’s Detect and Avoid (DAA) system, leading the transition from prototype to product and operational fielding. Fabrice currently serves on RTCA, ICAO, EUROCAE and NATO industry committees, leading the standardization activities of key systems required to enable autonomy and operational improvements for piloted and unpiloted aircraft worldwide.

Before joining GA-ASI in 2015, Fabrice was CTO of the Panoptes Systems Corporation (a spin-off from Aurora Flight Sciences), which developed the first commercially available obstacle avoidance system for small unmanned aircraft systems. As part of Panoptes, he also contributed to the maturation of the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) concept in collaboration with NASA, and was awarded multiple patents related to environmental perception, sensing, and aircraft autonomy.

He earned his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of North Dakota and holds both Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also holds an FAA Commercial Pilot’s License with an IFR and Multi-Engine Rating, as well as a Swiss Private Pilot’s License.