GENIUS NY Finalist Shares CNY UAS Ecosystem Insights on Syracuse.com

Posted On
September 3, 2025
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UAS drone operator

The CEO of Modovolo, a GENIUS NY Round 9 finalist, published an article in the Syracuse.com opinion section exploring the assets and strengths of Central New York's drone sector. Justin Call previously authored an article for Commercial UAV news explaining how the region built a successful and robust UAS ecosystem. In the article for Syracuse.com, Call looks to the future and sees Syracuse well positioned to be a hub the advancement of UAS technology. 

Call highlights NUAIR, GENIUS NY alum Aloft, Upstate Medical, ResilieX and the GENIUS NY program as important pieces of the growing UAS infrastructure and why he believes the region will succeed in the future. 

"Syracuse hosts the world’s largest business competition focused exclusively on uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) technologies. The grand prize is a $1 million investment and that has gotten a lot of attention across the drone industry. 'We get applications from across the world. For the latest 2026 cohort, we had over 300 companies apply,' said Kara Jones, Director of GENIUS NY.

Beyond the $1 million prize money, 'We’ve done a lot of work to understand what is needed for our companies to be successful,” Jones said. “And there is now an amazing ecosystem of drone companies that know drone technologies.'"

Read the Article

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