Conference

07 January 2022
SKEYE project, Incoming mission: Albanian industry delegation visits Apulia Region
Overview

Last 14th of December 2021, Distretto Tecnologico Aerospaziale - DTA, in collaboration with Albanian Civil Aviation Authority, organized an incoming mission for a delegation of Albania aerospace companies. The mission was organized in the framework of the project SKEYE - Strengthening Key aErospace technologY for smart transport monitoring systEms, co-funded by the Interreg IPA CBC Italia-Albania-Montenegro programme.

The objective of the SKEYE project is to create the conditions for a stable and continuous cooperation among Puglia, Albania and Montenegro to support the three regions in developing a more harmonized and integrated aerospace research and industrial ecosystems able to face future challenges related to the increasing applications of space services and Urban Air Mobility (UAM).

About 20 Albanian and Italian companies participated in the SKEYE Incoming Visit. The event was opened by Mr. Acierno, President of DTA, who highlighted the role of aerospace technologies in our society and in our life: space services enable innovative approaches for more effective public administrations, while UAS (or drones) are going to change the way we use the urban and peri-urban, sky. Representatives of University of Bari, Regione Puglia, of Municiaplity of Bari, of Aeroporti di Puglia discussed their commitment to contribute, in line with their institutional roles, to the effort to make Puglia an experimental platform new aircraft, included UAS, and for aerospace applications for smart cities. Politecnico of Bari, University of Bari and University of Salento presented to the participating companies their research lines in the field: new kind of air mobility is part of the project Casa delle Tecnologie di Bari (Prof. M. Ruta, Politecnico di Bari), space services and applications to monitor territories and environment (Prof. F. Giordano, università di Bari), hybrid propulsion systems for low carbon footprint UAS (Prof. T. Donateo, Università del Salento). Finally, Dott. Agrosì, Financial officer of the program Interreg IPA-CBC Italia-Albania-Montenegro 2014-2020, presented results achieved with the projects funded within this programming period program and scratched the framework of the new programme that will operate till 2027.

The main part of the Incoming Mission was dedicated to the participating companies. Firstly 10 of them presented their business vision and capacity in order to make each other aware about the potentialities available, then a number of face-to-face meetings were held during which new potential cooperation were discussed.

The Interreg IPA CBC Italia-Albania-Montenegro 2014-2020 is the best framework to build relationship around the Adriatic basin and DTA is firmly committed at making aerospace technologies a domain of cooperation to promote a harmonized development and growth of Italy, Albania and Montengro. Antonio Zilli, project manager of the SKEYE project, highlighted that the new program Interreg IPA-CBC Italia-Albania-Montenegro 2021-2027 presents several challenges that space services and new air transport solutions, included urban air mobility, can contribute to achieve. In final phase of the SKEYE project, the focus will be tailored at building concrete cooperative innovation initiatives involving the Italian and Albanian companies that participated in the Incoming Visit.