The stars aligned when the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) tapped Chris Runde to take on the opportunity of a lifetime running its new Airport Innovation Accelerator. The Accelerator strives to drive greater innovation in airports by assisting qualified companies in bringing their technology and services to the airport marketplace.
For a guy focused on technology since he was a little kid, this new role is a dream come true.
“The concept itself--the idea that you can bring innovation to the airport community quickly--is incredibly exciting to me,” Runde says. “I see this job as a perfect fit for my interests and my background. It has a perfect mix of technology, airports, start-ups, innovation, and the fact that it’s tied to an organization with a tremendous reputation could make this something really incredible.”
Runde is no stranger to technological developments. Upon graduating from the systems engineering program at the University of Virginia, he set to work delivering large-scale IT systems for Accenture. He later moved to a role with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), back in 2002, when the organization was brand new and faced with many challenges, one of which was vetting the backgrounds of 50,000 new employees. In this position, Rudde was intricately involved in creating the TSA’s personnel security vetting system.
“At that time, the administrator of the TSA was trying to figure out how to get through that many background checks in a compressed timeframe,” Runde says. “In the meantime, all of these people were out on the front lines working, so there was a mandate to get it done before the end of the fiscal year.”
Runde says he must have done something right on this project because by the end of the contract, about two years later, the TSA hired him to manage that system. By the time he left this post, the TSA was vetting around 10 million individuals’ every year. He was then tapped in 2008 to step-up the biometric credentialing effort for airport employees. “At the time, there were some issues at a major airport,” he recalls. “One of their vendors was using old badges for new employees. When new hires started, the manager would point to a box in the corner and say ‘Pick out a badge that looks like you and go off and conquer.’ That raised concerns when investigators found out about it.”
He says that this is often how the security industry works. “When you uncover vulnerabilities, it's important to find solutions that can address them quickly,” he says. “That sort of ties us back to the Accelerator, and the need for a system like this.”
Airport Business recently chatted with Rudde to learn more about the AAAE Airport Innovation Accelerator and the ways it hopes to bring technology to the airport sector.
Why is there a need for a development like the AAAE Airport Innovation Accelerator?
It is critical for the industry to have the right solutions at their fingertips at the right time. With the speed at which technology moves and changes, if you wait for a standard procurement cycle the technology you developed may be outdated.
I see the Accelerator as an organization trying to identify a product market fit. What do the airports need and how do you fill them? That's one of the disconnects I often see. Companies will go out and build something, and they'll wait for people to come. In contrast it's much more important for companies to actually talk to the airports and figure out what they need and built product to meet those needs. Then they need to come back repeatedly to make sure they are building what is actually important to airports.
The effectiveness of the Accelerator, its real intent, is to be a hub for airport innovation. I see it as a confluence of airport input directly throughout the process coupled with government initiatives and awareness, and an understanding of what regulators are looking at. These are the three core components that make up the Accelerator.
How will the Accelerator be used as a vehicle to bring these two entities together?
One of the tenets of the Accelerator is that it serves the airport community. A startup targeting the aviation sector needs to listen to airports. It is key to their success. But another element of success is understanding how airports work--their procurement cycles, their organizational structures and their emerging technological needs. The only way to do that effectively is to really immerse yourself in the airport marketplace. The challenge for companies is it's often either impractical or unappealing to get that type of exposure and insight into the market. What that leads to is the development of good solutions, potentially valuable solutions, that never make it into airport hands.
Our goal behind the Accelerator is to marry these innovations and new ideas with airports and do so early and often. That includes connecting technologies with airports and having conversations but also cultivating those ideas into viable commercial solutions.
What areas can technological innovations really make a difference at airports?
There are so many innovations that are happening inside airports as well as in other sectors that could improve a number of key areas. One of the top things I have on my white board is customer service--the reality is airports are in the business of customer service; serving hundreds of millions of passengers every year. Another one is operations. There are a lot things happening behind the scenes that keep flights on time, ensure bags arrive at their right destination, and so on. The other elements include safety and security, which are big things from a regulatory standpoint.
In those areas alone, there's lots of opportunity. When you talk about customer service, mobility is a key initiative that could improve the passenger experience. There are a number of mobile apps that will connect customers with amenities at the airport. But there are also some that will guide travelers to the right checkpoints and do other things that can make life better for everyone involved.
Some other areas include retail and commercial operations.These are the vendors providing services within the airport community. Another one is automation and monitoring. This falls into the realm of UAVs or other technologies that have the ability, for instance, to scan the perimeter of an airport without an individual doing that. Some of the automated capabilities that we're seeing in other industries include unmanned, remote-controlled snow removal systems or de-icing systems.
We're also looking at landside operations as an area of interest. Another one that I have on my white board is emergency response and medical issues. Technology and services that give airports the ability to respond to anything that happens on their premises. Improving the passenger experience gets its own bullet.
Right now, the universe of solutions spans across many different areas. We're trying to zero in on those that are most impactful to airports. The best thing for us to do is to listen to the airports. That's the stage we're in right now--getting that airport feedback.
How are you gathering airport feedback?
We have issued surveys to gather some statistics on what airports need. But I'm a big proponent of face-to-face conversations and meeting with airport directors directly to understand what their challenges are. It's one thing to have data points. It's another thing to walk the tarmac with an operator and understand where their challenges lie. So for me it's a combination of convenient data collection and getting up close and personal with airport personnel to understand their specific needs.
What will the process be to accelerate moving new technology into airports?
There are a few key tenets that we would look to provide innovators with. One is an education on the market itself. If you go in blind without an understanding of the procurement cycles, the organizational structure, and the political or regulatory constraints that airports deal with, you are already at a disadvantage. The second is mentoring and introduction. I believe a key component centers on the lean start-up. The concept there is moving away from a 5-year business plan and engaging customers early and often. The goal is to make sure you're building something that people care about before you invest time and resources. Going forward with a solution and taking it out to airports when it isn't viable or isn't valuable is a waste of everybody's time. So, after education, the next task is getting the word out to airports and getting direct feedback. A key component is listening to what the airport's are saying then coming back to them with what we thought we heard and how our solution could meet those needs.
Then, after education, mentoring and introductions, we're looking at how do we marry that technology with ongoing government initiatives? Is there a way for us to address multiple challenges in a more efficient way?
Finally, the broader goal is, if this is a viable and valuable solution for airports as a whole, moving it toward a commercialized solution; making it readily available and easily accessible for airports. I think that's one of the keys that we have for the Accelerator and I think that's probably the main reason we picked 'Accelerator' as a name. We want to get new developments into their hands as quickly as possible, but we also want to make sure it's valuable before it gets there.
Will there be funding for them to get the technology in place?
It is something we are considering. There are multiple avenues and ways to fund a company. Right now we're just trying to figure out what would be the best fit for a program like this.
