Jani Hirvinen

Jani Hirvinen (born in 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is one of the early Finnish IT-technology pioneers. Hirvinen is also one of the first ones developing small private sector professional level UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). He is among the top developers of the ArduCopter platform that - together with the included autopilot - changed the way drones are being flown all over the world. He is also the co-founder of famous international unmanned institutions ArduPilot, DIYDrones and DroneCode.

On top of being a developer, Hirvinen is also a visionary. According to him, we are facing Planet 5.0, an era transforming us to work and live differently in terms of logistics, transportation and human interaction. This will also open doors for us to explore planets far beyond ours.

Youth

Early life Hirvinen was born to a family of aviation as his father was a long term aviator and flight instructor in Finland. Her mother had acquired pilot's license while being pregnant with her son. and created ArduCopter team. He became a leader of ArduCopter development team and created the first ArduCopter that is now base system for the worlds No.1 multicopter platform. In late 2010 Hirvinen released that hit markets really hard and introduced many new techniques that are now in use on most multicopter airframes. Soon after the initial release of ArduCopter, jDrones and 3DRobotics companies were created to serve ever growing need of creating personal drones for the masses.

Transformation to technopreneur Hirvinen describes himself being a technopreneur. He specializes on electronics, robotics, sensor networks, telemetry systems, IoT, Drones (air, land, sea). He is also doing custom-made R&D for electronics, frames (air, sea land), softwares, and OEM services. He has been involved in the manufacturing of unmanned and full-size manned aircraft for more than 40 years. For more than three decades, he has worked with a variety of IT platforms to handle complex electronics and advanced robotics. This had made him a well-known name in the UV field.

Hirvinen is currently the CEO of the Thai UAV Industry Company, the Vice President of the World Drone Federation, and a member of the Expert Committee of the Shenzhen UAV Industry Association. He owns brands like jDrones, jD-UAS, and jD-Tactical.

Visions

Influencers Scientists like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and a Swiss mathematician and physicist Daniel Bernoulli have greatly inspired Hirvinen. Stephen Hawking's world views have also always impressed him. For Hirvinen, Industrial 4.0 is already an old concept. He sees current entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, who is envisioning new innovative transportation systems like Hyperloop, SpaceX, and Tesla, being in the front row of the development of unmanned systems.

jDrones is also a founding member of the Dronecode Project that is hosted under the Linux Foundation and serves as the vendor-neutral home for PX4, MAVLink, QGroundControl, and the MAVSDK.

Currently, jDrones has customers in about 65 countries. It is also a premier distributor for several universities, space agencies and governments.

jDrones is headquartered in Bangkok's Prawet District, where it has its R&D, manufacturing, and testing facilities for air frame design and mechanical engineering, electronics and flight control systems engineering, generic structural components manufacturing, composites manufacturing, and electronics manufacturing. It also has an electronics test lab, and an RF test lab.

Awards

Global UAV Award In 2017, Hirvinen received the Global UAV Award in recognition of the outstanding contributions to the Global UAV Industry in the past few years. The award was given at the Drone World Congress.

The other winners were Tom Verbruggen, CEO of IDRONECT, professor Mr. Lan Yubin (China), Brian Wynne, President and CEO of AUVSI, and Paul Xu, Vice President of DJI from China.

Key events

First ArduPilot UAV Developer Conference The first UAV developer conference was organized in Xiamen on 22 October 2017. In the event, Ardupilot community's co-founder Jani Hirvinen and other core members shared prospects of the drone industry and shared views of the development of the Ardupilot community itself. Hirvinen also gave a lecture on the ArduPilot project and the unmanned revolution.

The 3rd Annual UAV Conference 2018 The 3rd Annual UAV Conference was held on 6 January 2018, at Shenzhen Langham Hotel. The hosts were Shenzhen UAV Industry Association, China UAV Industry Alliance, China UAV Racing Alliance, and Shenzhen Rainbow Eagle UAV Research Institute.

In the forum organized during the conference, the cooperation signing ceremony between Shenzhen UAV Industry Association and Shenzhen Vanke Industrial Real Estate Operation Management Co., Ltd., Wing Hang Dongsheng Dongguan Aviation Industry Group Co., Ltd. and International Unmanned System Open Source Developer Organization was also held. President, Wang Jun, deputy general manager of Vanke Real Estate, Chairman of the company, Mr. Li Xuhong, and Mr. Jani Hirvinen attended the signing ceremony.

In addition, the forum also announced five group awards - 2017 China's top 10 UAV innovation companies, 2017 advanced member units, 2017 China UAV excellent service providers, 2017 China UAV excellent industry media and one Individual Award - the 2017 Drone Industry Cooperation Award.

The appointment ceremony for the newly added expert members of the Shenzhen UAV Industry Association in 2017 was also carried out. Xue Yonggang, Guo Wei, Jia Hengdan, and Jani Hirvinen were hired as members of the expert committee.

The 2nd Drone World Congress 2018 The 2nd Drone World Congress was held 22–24 June 2018, at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center. Among other activities, the event consisted of a themed conference (Power of the Age), 18 forums, 15,000 square meters of international exhibitions, and a global drone contribution awards ceremony. World's top UAV specialists attended the 3-day congress, including Jani Hirvinen.

The 2nd Global Unmanned System Conference The Second Global Unmanned System Conference was held 4–5 November 2018. The venue for the event was Zhuhai's International Convention & Exhibition Center. The organizers were the China UAV Industry Alliance, the Guangdong Academy of Sciences and the Zhuhai UAV Association.

With the theme of “No Man System, Wisdom Drives the Future”, more than 40 heavyweight speakers, including well-known academicians, industry elites and entrepreneurs, were invited. More than 500 guests attended the event.

Hirvinen was one of the keynote speakers of the event. The theme of his presentation was the development of open source globalization. The ArduPilot community that Hirvinen has been a part of from the beginning is a non-profit, open source drone community where drone developers from around the world can share their research in the community with the goal of providing users with a reliable and open technology.

The forum saw also Hirvinen give a keynote speech on UVs and the development of open source globalization.

Langfang International UAV Development Forum 2019 The Langfang International UAV Development Forum 2019 was held on 18–21 May. Its main theme was "New Industry, New Market, New Kinetic Energy", consisting of a forum and an exhibition. The event was hosted by Shenzhen UAV Industry Association and Langfang International Exhibition Group Co., Ltd at the Arcadia International Hotel.

In the event, leaders, experts, and entrepreneurs from more than 10 countries and regions gathered together to discuss how UAVs can nurture new industries and open up new markets in the era of artificial intelligence, and to inspire new kind of kinetic energy to promote the healthy and orderly development of the global drone industry.

In the forum, one of the keynote speakers was Jani Hirvinen, who gave an update on various developments and trends in the UAV industry. He also focused on artificial intelligence and big data shaping the industry.

The 3rd Drone World Congress 2019 The Third Drone World Congress 2019 was held 20–22 June at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center. It was hosted by the China Information Technology Industry Federation, People's Government of Nanshan District, Government Procurement Center, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Research Center of UAV Application and Control, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen Municipality and Shenzhen UAV Industry Association.

The organizing committee had invited internationally recognized UAV experts and scholars from the United States, Britain, the European Union, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Korea and Israel, along with 100 other countries and regions. Approximately 3000 UAV industry organizations, global experts, entrepreneurs, well-known advisory bodies and financial institutions were presented in this major annual UV event. The main theme of this conference was "Technology makes life better."

Coinciding with the world congress, the International Unmanned Systems Open Source Developers Conference focused on issues like non-GPS navigation, object avoidance, UAVCAN hardware system, how to build industrial solutions with drones, airborne LUA script, TECS debugging, new challenges and opportunities in drone group control and intranet, on how to apply Ardupilot to a new field - ChibiOS/HWDEF, on how to use lidar on drones, the application and future of cloud drones, new multi-rotor navigation controller based on S-curve, and to creating an open software and hardware platform, and an ecosystem suitable for different industries (UAV + load). Hirvinen was one of the keynote speakers of this event.

China (Huizhou) International UAV Application Development Forum Organized on 23 June 2019, the first China (Huizhou) International UAV Application Development Forum was held in Huizhou, focusing on the theme “Determining Vision and Technology to Create the Future.”

The forum invited 16 countries (regions) including China, the United States, Japan, Australia. During the event, more than 50 experts and professors in the field of drones, international drone associations, and relevant leaders of the drone industry gave speeches on relevant topics to jointly explore the future innovation and development of the drone industry. Hirvinen was one of the keynote speakers of this forum.

During the event, Hirvinen was also interviewed by Nanfang Daily. In it, Hirvinen summarized China's role in the development of new UV and drone technology: "China's drone industry is developing very rapidly, especially in the hardware manufacturing and application fields, but there is still much room for improvement in drone software. As far as I know, some of the drone manufacturers in China are currently using the mature open source system in the world."

The 2019 Western China International Drone Development Forum On June 27–28, the 2019 Western China International Drone Development Forum was hosted by the Chongqing UAV Industry Association at the Shangbang International Hotel in Chongqing. The forum gave birth also to the Chongqing UAV Industry Association. Hirvinen was one of the event's keynote speakers.

Golog First International Plateau Drone Culture Conference The first international high-altitude drone culture forum of Guoluo (Golog) was held on 5 August 2019. There organizers of this unique conference and forum were the Party Golog Prefecture Committee, and the Qinghai Province Sports Bureau.

Jani Hirvinen was invited as one of the key guests to the event.

2019 International Drone Development Summit The 2019 International Drone Development Summit, one of the special events of the 2019 World Internet of Things Expo, was held in China's Wuxi on 6 September 2019. Hirvinen was one of the foreign UV experts that were invited to the event.

Private life In 2005, Hirvinen moved to Thailand, where he still has his home and drone assembly line in Bangkok's Prawet district. Hirvinen is married to a Thai and has a daughter and son. His hobbies include R/C heli flying, electronics occasional paragliding, sailplane flying and ice skating.