Drone Conference
6–7 NOV

Stephen Sutton
(The FlyBy Guys)

Stephen Sutton is one of the founders of Finnish drone company, Flyby Guys. He began flying drones in 2017 and since then has led Flyby Guys to incredible heights with drone operations around the world. Their experience has gone from telecom and utility inspections to drone delivery projects, and their world-famous drone lights shows, which they operate around the globe.

Stephen is also a consultant to the drone industry, guiding and helping others find their feet in this tough and demanding industry.

Emil Kastehelmi (Black Bird Group)

Emil Kastehelmi is one of the founders of the Black Bird Group intelligence group and a prominent war commentator both at home and abroad. Along with OSINT and GEOINT activities, Kastehelmi actively monitors drone warfare and its development.

Dr.-Ing. Holger Friehmelt (FH JOANNEUM)

Dr. Holger Friehmelt is director of the aviation institute at FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria. He is also founding father of AIRlabs, an innovation laboratory providing segregated airspaces for UAS testing in Austria.

His first professional exposure to drones was in a military program between the U.S. and Germany in 1998. Holger Friehmelt holds a master in engineering and finished his doctorate at DLR in Braunschweig in 1999.

Prof. Martti Lehto (University of Jyväskylä)

Dr. Martti Lehto, PhD in Military Sciences, COL G.S. (ret.) works as Research director in the Faculty of Information Technology at University of Jyväskylä. Before academic career he has over 30 years of experience as developer and leader of C4ISR Systems in Finnish Air Force. He is also Director in the Finnish Center of Expertise for Cybersecurity in Jyväskylä and Adjunct professor in National Defence University in Air and Cyber Warfare. He has over 200 publications and research reports on areas of cyber warfare, critical infrastructure protection, air power, C5ISR systems, cyber security education, information warfare, security and defence policy, leadership, and management. Since 2001 he has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Military Magazine.

Jesse Tolvanen (LUT)

Jesse Tolvanen is a Junior Researcher at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT). His PhD research activities include UAV swarming, autonomous systems, communication systems, and standardization. He is an active member of ISO/TC 20/SC 16 “Unmanned Aircraft Systems” and CEN/TC 471/WG1 “Unmanned Aircraft Systems.” Jesse has over 10 years of experience operating and developing drones in and outside of work. He is an active UAV pilot and volunteers at Suomen Lentopelastusseura (The Finnish Air Rescue Association) in the readiness group UAS 403 Mikkeli.

Dr. Pirita Ihamäki (Robocoast EDIH)

Pirita Ihamäki, PhD, M.Sc., is an accomplished business developer with 15 years of experience in digital business ecosystems. As head of the Gamecoast network, she oversees Robocoast’s international partnerships with ECCP, EDIH, and DIH centers, focusing on strengthening Europe’s innovation capacity, competitiveness, and green growth.
Dr. Ihamäki is committed to enhancing small and medium-sized enterprises’ innovation potential through ecosystem and networking services across Europe. She blends strategic and operational expertise to create effective international business and open innovation models, specializing in service design and digital innovation ecosystems.
Her research explores value creation within digital ecosystems, furthering the EDIH ecosystem’s development. Dr. Ihamäki’s work drives innovation and growth in Europe’s digital landscape.

Mikko Kauppinen (Stora Enso)

Mikko Kauppinen is a business developer in Stora Enso Forest Division. He is the service product owner of three services of Forest Finland business unit: forestry and wood trade analytics, forestry customer service automation and drone mobile system. He has been the project manager of some development projects as well. Mikko has wide hands-on experience in forest business starting from making wood purchase contracts with individual forest owners to leading operations management team of Stora Enso Southern Finland Region. Mikko started his full day working career as a sales consultant in logistics software provider Procomp Solutions.